


Taste

by jennandblitz



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blood, Blood Drinking, Blood Kink, Blow Jobs, Drinking blood, Dystopia, Explicit Sexual Content, Fights, Finger Sucking, Frottage, Hand & Finger Kink, Hand Jobs, Human!Remus, Knives, Light Bondage, M/M, Multi, Not Domestic Violence, Oral Sex, Post-Apocalypse, So keep an eye out, Talking About Blood, There's lots of blood, Vampire!Sirius, Vampires, Violence, Voyeurism, You guys there's so much blood, it's vampires, lots of banter, more tags to be added with every chapter, musings on the human race, thinking about blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-03-30 02:13:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 29,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19032658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennandblitz/pseuds/jennandblitz
Summary: In 2094, Mother Nature has taken everything back, even the humans.If Sirius were a human, his stomach would be rumbling. But instead, it’s like a dull ache behind his teeth, tension between his eyes, an itching at his fingertips. Not quite hunger but hunger all the same, a tightening of his senses to search out the one thing he needs to survive.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It was only a matter of time before I wrote a vampire AU, wasn’t it? Enjoy my take on a dystopian future too, as I'm fascinated by the idea of blood as a commodity, and subverting the expectations of this Mad-Max-esque post-apocalypse (even though I adooooore a Mad Max post-apocalypse). Huge heartfelt thank you to @Jencala for being my beta and cheerleader for this fic, and thank you to the Writer’s Defense Squad for letting me go Hand Kink wild. 
> 
> I'm going to post a chapter every Thirsty Thursday, and I have at least two thirds of it written so far, so we've got some lovely vampiric content for the next few weeks. More tags to be added with every chapter, so keep an eye out if there's something potentially upsetting there. There will be blood and graphic violence, but I will try and trigger-warn at the beginning of every chapter. Safe to say if you don't like blood though, back up outta here. We're vampires here, kiddo.
> 
> Come say hi on [tumblr!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/jennandblitz) I don't bite...

It should’ve been no surprise that when the world finally turned in on itself and Mother Nature took her long-overdue payments, vampires would be prevalent amongst the survivors.

Sirius remembers the world pre-Gaia, remembers the way the humans would take and take, remembers being one of them, just so long ago, vaguely, like looking through a dirty window. Back then, the early 21st century, humans had visions of the apocalypse as a desert, scrambling for food and water, looking out over the sand and seeing nothing for miles and miles. But Mother Nature wouldn’t have that. The world was _hers_ and she would take it back by force.

“You getting anything?” James asks from his side, a half pace behind him for how narrow the pathway they have carved is. Jungle encroaches from all side, trees, vines, plants taller than any man, and Sirius stops at a fork in their pathway to close his eyes and let the senses he has honed for centuries flare forward.

By all rights, the city—he thinks it might be London, it’s hard to tell now—should be alive with humans. It’s dusk, that sweet spot of twilight between the sweltering heat of the day beneath the canopy of trees and the brittle cold of the nighttime. But it’s quiet today, quiet beyond the incessant buzzing of insects and the rustle of undergrowth filled with creatures ready to bite and poison.

“No,” Sirius murmurs back, knowing his brother’s senses are just as honed and sometimes even more pointed. But most of the time, James is too laidback to take the lead for a hunt, preferring to let Sirius stretch his legs, or occasionally, when Lily and Regulus join them, to let his paramours take centre stage. James is far too laidback for his own good really, but Sirius doesn’t mind it. “Let’s try going to the Square.”

If Sirius were a human, his stomach would be rumbling. But instead, it’s like a dull ache behind his teeth, tension between his eyes, an itching at his fingertips. Not quite hunger but hunger all the same, a tightening of his senses to search out the one thing he needs to survive.

“Good idea,” James agrees, pushing back a handful of vines from their path and shaking his arm sharply to dislodge them before they can grab on and haul him into the undergrowth. They’d be hard pressed against vampiric strength, but Sirius has seen some frankly terrifying things in this snarl of jungle that might’ve been a sprawling metropolis before Gaia.

The Square is more like a clearing, the ghostly suggestion of buildings at the edge of a gathering where the plants do not encroach. Sirius picks through one of the buildings, pushing open a door that creaks and near falls from its hinges.

_There_. _There it is_. That smell, iron and rust and ambrosia. Sirius barely holds back a snarl at the way desperate hunger unfurls at the base of his throat and quickens his pace. James is behind him too, already smelling and sensing, tracking like an animal. They’ll need more than one, for the four of them, for Lily and Regulus back at home, but one is a start, something to abate the violent hunger and allow them both to think clearly. 

Something strange is coiling at the back of Sirius’ mind, like he’s following an old scent, but he can’t quite figure out why until they turn a corner and come across a human, searching through what looks to be an old library, the books sprawling out around him. It’s a face Sirius instantly recognises, but it does nothing to combat the bubbling of his hunger.

“Hello,” Sirius says around a smile, hand reaching out for James’ wrist to stop him from going forward.

The man jumps, clearly surprised by their arrival, too engrossed in his books or elsewise unable to hear the near-silent approach of things not quite human, but human enough. He looks up, eyes going wide—yes, it’s him, Sirius remembers those wide, frighteningly green eyes—until he sees Sirius and they darken a fraction.

“Hi. You—” he sets the book down and Sirius doesn’t miss the way he rubs one hand over the wrist of his other arm— “it’s you. You remember?”

“Yes,” Sirius says around another smile, widening a fraction, canine teeth puckering at his lower lip. Oh, he remembers.

He remembers coming across this man years ago, thinner but still as arresting, blood high in his cheeks, freckled and stunning. He remembers bargaining with him—a knife to help cut back the jungle, directions to the nearest human settlement and a chicken, all for a taste of his blood. Times were hard, still are, with the population so low and spread apart. Sirius had been near starving. He could’ve just overpowered the man and taken what he wanted, but he wanted him to consent, he wanted to taste euphoria instead of fear. He _wanted_. And the man hadn’t disappointed. He had paled a little, precious blood draining from his face, but he’d nodded and agreed. He understood the price of things now post-Gaia.

Sirius remembers sinking his teeth into the man’s wrist—only his wrist, not his neck, the neck was always far too tempting—and gulping down mouthfuls of rich blood, hazy with the euphoria, the way the world span around him and blurred, rose-tinted. He remembers the corresponding look of euphoria in the man’s eyes, those green eyes wide and bright, his mouth in a soft ‘O’ as he weathered the unexpected rush of synergy, of pleasure. Sirius remembers those eyes and the soft little gasp the man made as clear as yesterday. He remembers how frighteningly beautiful the man had looked then, a hidden Eden, some mark of finery long lost now all the beautiful things in museums and collections had been long pilfered and destroyed. Sirius likes to collect beautiful things and he’d thought on collecting this man for a moment, taking him back to their house and keeping him beautiful. But he looked too good in the wilderness; it was a backdrop that suited him, and Sirius was loathe to upset that delicate balance. In the end they had parted with Sirius still shivering under the assault of such strong blood on his senses and the man woozy but grinning, dead chicken in one hand, knife in the other.

Sirius crosses the room, hunger behind his teeth, whispering, shouting— _take, take, take—_ and holds a hand out for the man. “We never exchanged pleasantries, did we?”

The man smiles— _merciful Gaia_ , it’s blistering—and takes Sirius’ hand to shake. The movement exposes the alabaster blue of his wrist and Sirius sees the shape of his own teeth marked there, healed but silvered and sharp. Sirius feels the man’s pulse throb and the hunger snarls again, _take_. “No, we didn’t.” The man drops his hand, but he’s still looking at him with a strange curiosity, a smile on those pink lips. There’s a strange dichotomy within the humans, some are terrified of vampires but some realise they are only trying to survive, and that it doesn’t have to be fighting, running and screaming. This man appears to be in the second camp, he’s already bartered with Sirius once, smiling instead of screaming. He must remember the feeling of it.

“I’m Sirius.”

James shifts beside him, a movement in their shared lexicon of _hurry up, we’re starving,_ but Sirius ignores it. The universe has conspired to present Sirius with this creature of beauty again after his stubborn refusal to have him last time, and he won’t pass this up again.

The man smiles, green eyes flickering between Sirius and James, dark hair, pale skin, the strange vampiric magnetism that clouds around them and draws people in, always in. “Remus.”

_Remus_. Even his name tastes good.

“What are you looking for, Remus?” Sirius’ gaze flickers to the crates covered in books. He wants this man now, his blood, his body, his soul. He won’t pass this up a second time and let him go back to the wilderness.

Remus seems to consider the answer for a moment, whether to tell Sirius now that they are one step beyond bartering, their shared history of that single bite fluttering between them. But then Sirius cocks his head to the side, a flash of light through his black eyes that turns them silver. He smiles, softly, slowly, preternatural, a reminder he is not human no matter how much he plays at it.

“One of the group I’m travelling with seemed to think there would be some herbal texts here.” The words come tumbling out of Remus’ mouth and he almost seems surprised, clenching his jaw shut to try and stop them.

Sirius smiles and James shifts again, another phrase of their secret language. _Other humans?_ Sirius feels the question as if James’ breath is on the back of his neck and he knows James won’t stay his hand much longer no matter how pretty Sirius finds this blood-bag.

“You did that, didn’t you?” Remus says, stepping forward into the gap between them, closing the distance. _Take!_ The hunger demands, but Remus looks angry and the way he flushes is far too alluring. “You made me say that.”

“Only a little push, Remus,” Sirius acquiesces with a tilt of his head. Remus looks fiery and sharp for a moment and it’s wonderful and Sirius’ whole body roils with it. He remembers how sweet he had tasted; the high had sated him for weeks.

“Well don’t do it again.” Remus’ brow furrows. Sirius wants to laugh at the way this pretty little human is standing up to a creature centuries old and capable of tearing him limb from limb in the blink of an eye. Remus swallows—Sirius tracks the bob of his Adam’s apple with voracity—and his voice comes out a little lower. “I would’ve told you anyway.”

_How kind._ Sirius doesn’t smile. The combination of Remus’ assertion and submission in one breath pushes hard against the limits of his hunger and he wants to grab the other man and sink his teeth into flesh, tender skin, iron blood. _Take, take, take_. But no, he wants Remus to give. He wants that strange little flash of fiery, petulant submission under his teeth.

“How about then Remus, you introduce us to your little group of travelling companions and I promise not to influence you to do anything at all on the way there?” Sirius gives a little mental push with his words, so low and gentle that Remus should barely be able to feel it, banking instead on the chemistry that is fizzing between them.

Remus nods and crosses the room. The thin amount of greenish, smog-filled light that filters through the cracks of the boarded-up window flashes across the angle of his jaw and the tender swoop of his neck. _Take._

Instead, Sirius lets Remus lead them out of the building and down another narrow-carved path through the jungle wilderness. There’s an abandoned backpack at the edge of the path and Sirius wonders idly if the plants have claimed its owner, another person torn from civilisation into the depths of supplication for Mother Nature.

James follows close behind. Sirius can feel a thousand questions from his brother in the air between them, felt by centuries together and a life of boyhood before that, before they found Minerva. _Patience_ , Sirius tells him with a glance thrown over his shoulder. _Patience_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for such lovely feedback on the last chapter, I'm so glad you're enjoying this world like I am. Thank you again to Jencala for the beta!   
> All the chapters are currently written, so you'll at least be getting _something_ on schedule from me at the moment! I love you 🖤

Remus’ band of travelling companions aren’t hard to find—only a short trip through the flora to another small Square. Sirius sees a crumbling side of a building vaguely familiar to him and thinks this must be London, or what’s left of it.

When Remus, Sirius and James appear at the edge of the group, it’s easy to tell the group know exactly what Remus’ new friends are. Sirius rolls his eyes as one woman— _Mother take her_ —crosses herself. It’s unnecessary and entirely offensive now—the sign of the cross does nothing when the closest thing to God is a vengeful force punishing those who left her long ago—but old habits must die hard. There’s only five of them, though, the woman who crossed herself, two men who look like brothers, and a young couple who watch the newcomers very carefully.

“Are you going to kill them?” Remus asks on a whisper, watching as James strides forward to chat to the young couple. The crossed woman puts as much distance between herself and James as possible and the two brothers keep striding forwards. It’s a shame, but two should be enough.

Sirius slides his gaze sideways to drink in the other man’s profile. His smile only just verges on kind. “Would you like me to?”

“No.” Not even a waiver of fear in his voice; Sirius is impressed. “They’re fine enough.”

Sirius chuckles. “Glowing praise.” The smell of blood assails him as James brings the girl of the couple—she’s mid-twenties maybe, it’s hard to tell when your age is in triple figures—into him and lifts her wrist to his mouth. Sirius knows from experience that James’ fingers are weaving a pattern over the skin of her pulse, close to hypnotic. Her boyfriend watches on caught between horror and lust. It’s a familiar expression now that vampires are so prevalent, Gaia wiping out the weak.

Sirius spares Remus another glance but his head is roaring now with the smell of blood and— _hell’s roots_ —if it’s Remus he’ll tear his throat clean out so instead he turns and crosses the gap between himself and the man of the couple. He looks scared for only a moment before Sirius takes his hand and circles his own pattern onto tender skin. He’s not in a trance, not when Sirius is this hungry, powers dipping lower and lower, but it will hurt less, and perhaps the prey part of the human brain becomes aware when it’s either submit-or-die. Fingers on his pulse, Sirius sinks his teeth into the man’s wrist without ceremony, moaning softly at the barrage of sensation.

He only takes enough, perhaps a little extra, enough to keep them going for a few days, maybe more, thinking of Lily and Regulus back home. But he also thinks of Remus, imagines it as Remus’ wrist beneath his teeth, those green eyes watching him with boundless curiosity. Sirius pulls back with a soft hiss, careful to close the wound with touch of his thumb and a flutter of his magic before chasing a droplet of blood that trickles down the skin. A glance sideways sees James smiling at the woman, her eyes pleasantly glassy.

“Thank you,” James murmurs to her, steadying her with hands on her shoulders until the high slips away.

Sirius echoes the sentiment, but he’s not sure the man even hears him past the rushing of his own blood. “There’s a human settlement around two hours walk that way,” Sirius murmurs, his tongue feeling thick in his mouth now for the cotton-wool pleasure of blood on it. He draws a crude map on a piece of yellowed paper with a stick of charcoal the man produces for him. His fingers are clumsy and slow, but he hands the map back to him, path marked, before he steps to the side. Remus is there, at his side, shoulder to shoulder if not for his height.

Sirius smiles down at him, defences lowered for a moment with the high. Remus looks beautiful, all spun, fragile glass, all pinks and softness, blood thrumming beneath his skin and bright, bright eyes. Sirius raises an eyebrow at him, one corner of his mouth lifting too. It’s a question, perhaps. Something like _Interested?_ Or _Like what you see?_ Or _Sticking around?_

“Did you do that to me?” Remus asks, jerking his chin towards the couple, currently leaning into each other as they pack their bags, pleasantly swimming. “Did you coerce me into letting you? When we—when we met last time?”

“No,” Sirius breathes, turning to Remus, ducking his head a little to whisper quietly, every cell in his body aware of how close they are. His blood smells _divine_ this close, and although the violent hunger isn’t behind his teeth anymore, there’s a different kind of hunger stirring up his insides. Remus’ face betrays a slight shiver of surprise as Sirius leans closer, still swimming in the pleasure of drinking, the smell of Remus’ blood mixing with the taste of another’s at the back of his throat. “That was all you and I.” Another whisper, a breath, eyes flickering all over Remus’ face as if trying to follow the pulse of blood through his veins.

“Why didn’t you?” Remus’ voice is soft but it doesn’t waver as he stares into Sirius’ black eyes. The motion bares a sliver more of his throat as he looks up and Sirius has to swallow a rumbling growl.

“Because, dear heart—” Sirius trails a finger down Remus’ cheek to the cut of his jaw, feeling his pulse hammering a rapid tattoo across his skin. Oh, so alive—“you taste _so_ much better when you agree.”

The phrase hangs in the air for a brief moment until Remus makes a noise in the back of his throat, soft but heavy all at once, wicking out through his mouth and over the air between them. “Oh?”

“Mhmm.” Sirius ducks closer, his breath ghosting over Remus’ lips. They’re so deliciously pink that Sirius bites his own lip and Remus wavers a little at the closeness. They’re not touching anywhere, not even a steadying hand on an arm, but it feels like a thousand fingers for the way it crackles between them. “Come home with me.”

Sirius knows it’s a bad idea, with James and Lily and Regulus there, with how hungry they have been for the past few months; but he also doesn’t want to let Remus go, not now their paths have crossed for the second time and he hasn’t had a chance to taste him yet.

“Yes,” Remus answers quickly, too quickly, but Sirius purposefully didn’t put any kind of mental push behind his words. He wants Remus here on his own terms, with the beating of his heart wholly his.

“Yes?” Sirius stays close, tasting the air between them. “You’ll follow a vampire back to his lair?”

A smile flits across Remus’ face and lights up those green eyes. He tilts his chin up a fraction more, but Sirius doesn’t miss this more obvious baring of his throat, and he meets Sirius’ black eyes. “I think you’ll like me better alive, Sirius.”

A laugh bubbles up Sirius’ throat and his whole being thrives for how Remus laughs too, slowly, as if he hasn’t laughed in a long time, biting his lip trying to stop the sound in a gesture Sirius wants to know intimately.

“Come on then,” Sirius says, the high slowly drifting away from him, always far too short, always catalogued to memory far too quickly. “Let’s go.”

James leads the way, anxious now to get back to his lovers, cutting a path for them, with Remus between he and his brother. Sirius brings up the rear under the pretence of making sure their companion is sheltered from the ravages of the jungle, but he’s sure all three of them are aware Sirius is in his current position to admire Remus’ body in the dim light.

He’s shorter than Sirius but that isn’t uncommon, with tawny hair that curls too long around his ears and over his forehead, into his green, green eyes. He’s definitely younger than half a century - Sirius’ view of ages is so warped he’s only entirely sure of that—so perhaps he was born after Gaia, and he’s only known this and nothing else. Perhaps that’s why he carries himself through the jungle like this, only a little less self-assured than Sirius and James, who stride through the forest as if they are one with it.

How sad human existence must be, Sirius thinks, to not remember the haze of the Roaring Twenties in Chicago, or the brink of change that came with the World’s Fair in London, or hearing a Beethoven symphony live. But then, on the heels of that, how lucky human existence must be, free of memories, free of that handful of lost years where civilisation fought in vain again Mother Nature’s hostile takeover, the horror that came with such a large portion of the population dying.

James pauses at the door to their home, a building so entwined with the forest and jungle around it that it’s hard to spot at first, no discernible windows or doors, although they are there beneath the foliage. But James knows them well enough, as does Sirius. James goes in first, and Sirius knows he will be making a beeline to Lily and Regulus. Remus pauses at the threshold and gives a glance back to Sirius.

Sirius nods, something deep in him flaring with possessiveness at the idea of Remus being in his rooms, and ushers him through the doorway. James is already across the room to where Lily and Regulus are sprawled on a pile of furs, tangled together. James crawls over them, offers his mouth to Regulus for a kiss that would be filthy if Sirius didn’t see it every day as Lily leans up to sink her teeth into the soft flesh of his throat.

Remus, _sweet Gaia,_ looks like he’s never seen anything as indecent before, as if he’s trying to stare and yet not look at the same time. Sirius puts a hand on his shoulder and marvels as his thumb finds the dip of Remus’ collarbone and feels the pulse rabbiting there. Oh, he’s so alive Sirius wants to break it and cherish it all at once.

“Unless you want to see much more,” Sirius murmurs into his ear, hand still firm on Remus’ shoulder, “then I suggest you come with me.” Sirius knows how the high will affect them, the trio who have not a measure of decency between them all, and whilst it doesn’t bother him—Sirius doesn’t understand the shackles of humanity, he shed them so long ago—he can see it might… _distract_ Remus. Although, Sirius thinks as Remus nods and turns away from the trio with great difficulty, perhaps that’s a good thing after all for how hard his pulse is hammering.

“Okay,” Remus agrees, letting Sirius direct him to the other room—the wall will go some way to dampening what will probably occur beyond it—but as soon as Sirius pushes the door closed he regrets being shut in such a confined space with something so alive. He mostly can’t believe Remus has agreed to accompany him without any kind of persuasion. He’s so used to either strange indifference or outright fear—perhaps so occasionally a look of lust that never goes anywhere because Sirius can’t _stand_ how needy some humans are—but Remus is looking at him with curiosity and wonder and something deeper, filled with heat.

Sirius watches him look around, watches the way the light that flickers through the canopy settles over his fine features and plays across them like the finest masterpiece his memory can recall. Hunger stronger than he’s known for _years_ flares up in Sirius’ throat, grows and roils to behind his teeth and hisses softly— _taaaaake_. Suddenly, the memory of Remus’ blood from years ago is inadequate, suddenly Sirius wants to drink all of him in, wants to bathe in it, own him in every way possible and never, _ever_ let him go again.

The dark sliver of his heart wonders if he will be able to stop if he lets himself have just a taste of this man. Sirius knows from experience he isn’t very good with moderation—when he wants something he wants all of it, and he _wants_ Remus like nothing in the last century and a half.

Remus turns to see Sirius in the doorway. He’s sure he’s glowering— _hell’s roots,_ he hates that word—but the smell of Remus’ blood in these close quarters is intoxicating and robs Sirius of all his higher functions. “Sirius?”

Remus closes the gap between them a little, just under arm’s length away from him now. Remus’ thin shirt is open around his throat and pushed up to the elbows. Sirius thinks Remus is _throbbing_ with blood and he wants to tear him piece from piece and gorge himself on it. He lets out a sharp breath, eyes dark, senses flaring, trying desperately to get his faculties under control.

“This was a bad idea,” Sirius breathes, unable to tear his gaze from Remus’ neck. He’s closing the gap before he realises it, reaching out to grasp Remus’ wrist and pull it into his body. The wrist, not the neck, or he won’t be able to help himself. “A very bad idea.”

Remus lets him and sighs out some kind of agreement as he stretches up to Sirius’ mouth as if to kiss him. Sirius stops him with a hand around his throat—his pulse is there, there, _there_ —and Remus’ pupils go wide and dark.

“You want this?” Sirius hisses, his fangs bared on his bottom lip, his grip tight on Remus’ wrist, his thumb pushing against Remus’ windpipe. Sirius hopes savagely that Remus will come to his senses and push him away and run and he only hopes he can hold back the urge to hunt and chase for long enough that he gets away. Then he relents and hopes he can just get away with a kiss, a fuck, to get off, to chase a different kind of euphoria and just _think_ about his blood. Then, he simply hopes that the memories will stay with him for the longest time because he doesn’t think he can stop this once he has started it. But Remus nods and the tendons in his neck feel deliciously taut. “You want _this_?” He slides his knee between Remus’ thighs and snarls in response to the heat he finds there, so alive, so deliciously alive.

Remus’ voice sounds more like a whimper than anything else. _“Yes.”_

Sirius kisses him then, hauls him up with the hand around his throat, presses him back into the crumbling stone wall and kisses him like he is oxygen, because he is, isn’t he? Remus moans sharply and immediately sinks into him, pliant, malleable, suggestible. His pulse spikes, his heartbeat hammering blood against Sirius’ hand. The skin is so thin, it would be so easy to—

No. He wants Remus whole. Sirius wants to keep him together, possessive and sharp and animalistic. He wants to keep this here because really, sooner or later, he knows, Remus will not get out of this alive.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to Jencala for the beta, as always, and thank you for the lovely responses to chapter two!
> 
> Also, thank you to YumeNouveau, who showed me [these gorgeous images](http://rebloggy.com/post/illustration-art-japan-design-concept-art-apocalypse-digital-art-concept-post-ap/76886184027) that so fully capture the world I'm building!
> 
> trigger warnings for blood drinking (really, guys, it's a vampire fic there's gonna be lots of this) and sexual content here!

Remus’ kisses are nothing like Sirius expects.

They are wild and sensual and he kisses like he knows what he wants and what he wants is intimate knowledge of Sirius’ mouth. It surprises Sirius—on the rare occasions he’s actually kissed a lover in the past half-century since Gaia, he has found it to be lacklustre. He’d much rather his mouth be elsewhere. But here, with Remus, kissing him seems like an inordinate pleasure only a slight sensation away from the taste of his blood. They kiss like there is nothing else in the world to have, the part of chapped lips, still soft and pink against the unyielding world around them, coaxing the kiss deeper and deeper. Sirius coils his tongue into Remus’ mouth to explore the warmth of it; he’s so _warm_ , so responsive, oh so, _so_ alive.

Sirius hisses into the kiss as Remus’ hands come up to palm over the planes of his shoulders, torn between wanting to feel the glory of Remus’ hands and wanting Remus to hold still so he can capture every inch of him and devour every single bit. Unable to stop himself at the way they are twining together, Sirius’ leg between his thighs, Remus grinding slowly against him, Sirius sinks his teeth into Remus’ bottom lip. Rich copper springs into his mouth just for a moment, until his tongue seals the puncture wound, but it’s too late already, it’s too much.

Before he realises, Sirius has ripped the shirt from Remus’ torso (by the buttons? With his nails? His teeth? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care) and pushed the tatters aside. Remus’ skin is only slightly darker than Sirius’—the thick canopy of trees block out all but the dregs of sunlight after Gaia—but his forearms and wrists are littered with teeth marks. Sirius pulls away, his fingers dancing over each of the crescent-moon scars to feel the puckers of canine teeth, taken aback by the voracity of his jealousy, his possessiveness.

“What are these?” Sirius spits, fingers closing in a vice around Remus’ wrist.

Remus lets his head drop back against the wall, his breath coming in gloriously short pants, his hips still shifting in search for friction against Sirius’ thigh. He looks undone already, high on their kisses and the way their bodies slot together, his eyes fever-bright, his lips swollen.

When he doesn’t answer, Sirius slides his knee higher, pinning Remus there against the wall with his body, not giving him an inch to move in search of pleasure. The moan Remus makes in response nearly undoes Sirius’ tightly wound self-control; he wants to find the source of that moan with his teeth. “I said,” he growls, never less human than now, bloodlust, possessive jealousy, the need to _take, take,_ _take_ , in every way possible, “what are these?”

Remus smiles—he must know how that works at Sirius’ seams like a tongue prodding at a rotten tooth—and shrugs one shoulder. He seems thoroughly unaffected by the way Sirius is handling him, pinned to the wall, teeth bared and demanding answers for questions he has no real right asking. “You know how easy it is to barter for blood, Sirius. It’s the one thing I always have.”

Sirius doesn’t realise his lips have curled into a sneer until Remus chuckles and it sets his blood boiling. His hand closes around Remus’ throat and only then does the laughter melt away and a flicker of fear pass through Remus’ green eyes. Sirius can barely comprehend how the very marrow of him hates the idea of Remus offering blood to anyone else. It seems foolish now perhaps, to expect he was the only one Remus had ever bartered with—he had agreed far too easily, hadn’t he—but the mental image of anyone else’s teeth getting to taste this paradise makes Sirius want to burn the world to ashes.

Sirius loosens his grip on Remus’ throat by a fraction and leans closer, close enough to feel Remus’ breath on his lips. His head is roaring with the need to take, and Sirius knows that if he hadn’t fed only an hour ago he would’ve already bled Remus dry for the way his blood smells like temptation itself.

“What about this?” Sirius kisses him harshly, teeth and tongue clashing, imagining Remus’ mouth to be uncharted territory purely for his own sanity. He has never felt possessiveness like this in his centuries. Sirius slides his body against Remus’, the knee between his thighs against the bulge of his trousers, working the most glorious noises from Remus’ mouth. His fingers trail to the fastening of Remus’ trousers and ghost over the line of his cock through the fabric. “Do you barter with this too?” Sirius whispers against his jaw, knowing he shouldn’t allow his mouth to stray down this hallowed path to Eden where Remus’ pulse lies but being powerless to stop it.

“What— _ah_ , what if I do?”

Sirius snarls, scraping his teeth along the knife of Remus’ jaw in a warning that only just fails to break the skin. Remus yelps at the flash of pain but his hips cant forward and his cock presses against Sirius’ fingers; he circles them lightly, helpless against the picture Remus paints for him. _You’re mine_ , he wants to say, to claim Remus forever to try and abate this violent need that has sprouted from nowhere and wrapped around him like vines, pulling him back towards Mother Nature. Sirius is sure he has never needed like this before and Remus’ strange brand of petulant submission only winds those vines tighter. _You’re mine_.

Remus chuckles again at the growl that rips from Sirius’ throat, but it quickly sinks into a heady moan with the way Sirius fingers slip beneath the fabric of his trousers and close around his cock. “Never like— _ohh, hell’s roots_ —never like this though. It’s never like this.”

Pleased at the fact, Sirius smiles against Remus’ jaw and slides his fist over Remus’ cock in idle adoration. He’s close already, Sirius can smell it on him, some heady mix of desire and desperation that cants his hips forward and tightens his grip on Sirius’ shirt. One of Remus’ hands slides through Sirius’ hair, up to the crown of his head where the fingers clench slightly, pulling Sirius closer. He knows instinctively where Remus is leading him—his sanity is being held on by a thread, and Remus’ neck is the last weight ready to snap that tenuous hold.

“I could kill you so easily,” Sirius whispers, unable to stop his mouth from wending a path along Remus’ jawline and down to his neck. The other man’s pulse hammers hard in his ears and under his mouth. Oh, it would be so easy.

Remus moans sharply and drags Sirius closer, as if he’s tempted by it, as if he’s— _merciful Gaia_ —as if he’s aroused by the danger and the second the thought sprouts into Sirius’ mind he has to banish it for the path it presents. He could resist, but he seems powerless to, drawn in by this creature and the temptation he offers. Remus shudders against him, trapped between Sirius and the wall, body tight with his impending orgasm. “But you won’t.”

 _Won’t I?_ Sirius wants to snarl, but the words don’t come and he sinks his teeth into Remus’ neck over his rabbiting, hammering, pounding pulse. Sirius moans sharply at the taste of Remus, iron, honey, ambrosia, _ichor_ , the blood of the Old Gods so hallowed that Sirius thinks he could come from the taste alone. Remus cries out into the mass of Sirius’ hair as his hips snap forward and he’s coming over Sirius’ fingers, gorgeous and warm and alive. Sirius is lost in sensation, gulping down mouthfuls of his blood like he hasn’t drank in months, like Remus is an oasis in the desert—he knows he can’t stop.

Remus’ thighs are shaking against Sirius’ knee as the aftershocks of his orgasm slip away and he sinks, boneless, pliant and beautiful against the wall. Sirius keeps him pinned there, a hand against his shoulder, the other withdrawing from his trousers, even as his mouth works to swallow down Remus’ essence and try to possess every part of him.

“Sirius…” Remus says weakly, as if he’s rousing from sleep and seeking comfort. His fingers tighten in Sirius’ hair and his other hand slides down over Sirius’ hip to circle lithe fingers over his cock. Sirius fights the maddening urge to grab his hands and pin them to the wall— _stay still!—_ but instead he gasps, tearing himself away from Remus’ neck with tremulous difficulty, his body electric with the simple touch of this man’s fingers. Sirius rolls his tongue over his teeth, watching the bite wind back together under the touch of his forefinger and his magic, breathing hard now the high has hit and everything is swimming and wonderful.

Remus watches him with wide eyes, the green only a slight ring around the yawning black of his pupils. He’s smiling, muzzily, as high as Sirius is in this moment, pleasantly strung along by their shared experience. He leans back against the wall and slides down it, keeping his gaze locked with Sirius’. Sirius thinks he’s falling for a moment, but instead Remus sinks to his knees and, his eyes boring into Sirius’, mouths over Sirius’ cock through his trousers.

One of Sirius’ hands flies out to brace against the wall for the way his knees go weak and a moan spills from his blood-smeared mouth. Remus simply smiles up at him, his hands on the corded muscle of Sirius’ thighs, his mouth sliding over Sirius’ trousers, the fabric dampening at the behest of his tongue. The shape of Sirius’ teeth shines like a beacon, already healed and turning fast from pink to silver, on Remus’ neck and Sirius’ pleasure spikes exponentially at the sight of it there like a brand.

“Can I?” Remus breathes, still gazing up at Sirius with those hazy eyes. His voice sounds lilting, as if he’s floating away and Sirius knows that he gave Remus that, knows that the heat in his eyes comes from Sirius’ teeth and his orgasm at Sirius’ hands.

“Yes.” The answer comes unbidden from Sirius’ mouth before he can even comprehend it, his fingers digging into the stonework of the wall, dust floating down onto Remus’ shoulders and nestling into his hair. Remus responds instantly, undoing Sirius’ trousers and pulling them down over the swell of his cock to expose it. Sirius has never been one for the aesthetics of pleasure, preferring instead to close his eyes and sink into sensation, but he wants to watch Remus worship his cock like it’s the finest sight.

Remus’ tongue twists in expert coils, his lips firm, sliding over Sirius’ flesh and drawing out moans of inexplicable pleasure, the flex of his throat sends Sirius’ bite mark sparkling in the otherwise dim light. Sirius thrusts lightly into the haven of his mouth, groaning with every flex of his hips and the responding noise it pulls from the back of Remus’ mouth. Sirius wants to hold onto this feeling forever, the taste of Remus’ blood still in his mouth, Remus’ lips around his cock, both of them floating on sensation, but his orgasm is fast approaching on rapid hooves and there is nothing he can do to hold it back. He reaches down to card through Remus’ hair—watching his eyelids flutter at the touch is a singularly phenomenal sight—and settles with his fingers bracketed around Remus’ throat, feeling it work with every swallow, every bob of his head, swirl of his tongue.

It’s a soft hum of encouragement that undoes Sirius in the end, feeling the vibration of Remus’ throat shudder against his fingers and then through his cock to the very centre of his being where it sets free a stampede of feeling that snarls out through his limbs with sensational pleasure. Sirius holds onto the wall, his other hand still lightly moored around Remus’ throat until the feeling sinks away, ebbing with an unseen tide to leave dregs of pleasure and bloodlust simmering at the edges of his vision.

Remus tips back to sit on his heels and sprawl at the base of the wall, smiling up at Sirius, his mouth pink. His pupils are still blown wide and Sirius can tell he’s on another plane right now, flying away on the wings of hedonism. He’s hard again, too—Sirius’ gaze is drawn to the tent of his trousers and he has to tamp down on the fierce desire to fall to his knees, hike Remus’ legs over his shoulders and _take—_ but his eyes are atop purplish bags. Perhaps he should’ve been kinder, Sirius thinks with something that might be construed as compassion trickling into his heart. A bite is hard on a human, especially when not under any compulsion, especially at the neck, especially when the blood is roaring a fierce rhythm around the body at the height of orgasm, and Remus looks pale in the dim, greenish light. But he looks glorious all the same.

“You should sleep,” Sirius says, hauling Remus to his feet and directing him towards the pile of blankets and furs in the room.

“See?” Remus is pliant as Sirius settles him amongst the furs, smiling at Sirius, his eyes glassy. Any sense of self-preservation at not falling asleep in a vampire’s lair is wicked away by the threads of tiredness knotting through him, the pleasant warmth of the high. Remus looks drawn and pale, his eyes already closing. Sirius knows he’s taken too much, but he can’t find it within him to feel sorry when Remus’ blood feels like the finest drug, a zap of pure heaven. “I said you wouldn’t kill me.”

Sirius smirks, pulling a fur over Remus’ shoulders and tucking a strand of his tawny hair behind his ear in a moment of tenderness from Gaia knows where. “With a mouth like that, dear one, I’ll try my hardest not to.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you again to Jencala for the beta and cheerleading on this fic! and to you for reading and leaving such wonderful comments.

“Who is he?” Lily asks as soon as Sirius steps across the threshold of the room and shuts the door behind him. He feels oddly protective of Remus sleeping in the other room, like he wants to lock the door, board up the windows, prevent anyone else from seeing such a thing of beauty that might drive one so easily to madness.

Sirius shrugs one shoulder and crosses over to the trio, smiling placidly at the sight. Lily’s hair is pooled around them like spilled blood, Regulus’ fingers filtering through it idly as he dozes, James’ head resting on her stomach. “I haven’t a clue. Some gift from the Old Gods, I don’t know.”

Lily hums, her fingers twisting through James’ hair. “You want him to stay?” James shifts slightly at the vibration of her voice and she cards a hand through his hair and down the stubble at his cheek, her nail leaving a bright red track in its wake. James groans softly and presses his mouth against the curve of Lily’s stomach. She smiles, but her black eyes—they used to be green, when she was human, Sirius remembers—flicker up to Sirius’ face, expecting an answer.

“Yes.” Something tightens in Sirius’ gut. He doesn’t want Remus to leave. He wants him to stay for as long as possible. There is no shortage of food in the jungle; Remus would not starve if he had Sirius to catch him rabbits, always quick, able to snatch them up before they run into the undergrowth, and Sirius would not starve with Remus here. It’s feasible. Perhaps not amenable to James, Lily or Regulus, but Sirius is prone to bouts of selfishness and he thinks for a moment only of his own happiness.

“Do we get a taste then?” Regulus drawls, cracking one eye open and fixing his brother with a stare, mirth tilting at the edges of his smile.

Sirius laughs to hide the well of murderous intent Regulus has uncovered in the pit of his stomach. He feels how deep it could be, how easy it would be to drown someone in those waters. “No.”

Lily smiles indulgently as Regulus’ fingers trace the edges of her hairline. The trio are so heedless of decency that it would rankle Sirius if he hadn’t known them for so long. Lily raises one eyebrow at Sirius. “Not even a little bite?”

They know exactly how to needle his sore spots, this trio of best friends, the three Sirius knows oft better than himself. Sirius rolls his eyes and crawls into the pile of furs to tangle limbs with them. “ _Hell’s roots_ , absolutely not.”

“Not even a teeny, tiny taste?” James teases, snatching up Sirius’ wrist and bringing it to his mouth, pricking along the vein with precise little bites. The motion draws a moan from Sirius’ throat as he stretches out onto his side, limbs tangled with the others so that he doesn’t know where any of them start or end.

“That’s as close as you’ll get to his blood, Jamie.” Idly, Sirius shoves at what he thinks is James’ shoulder and tugs his hand back.

James grins and chases a trickle of blood down Sirius’ wrist with his tongue, his eyes sparkling in the half-light. “Mmm, he tastes good.”

Sirius laughs and catches a stray bead of his own blood on his tongue, intrigued to see if it does indeed taste like Remus. There is something there, something indiscernible, something that speaks to his insides and summons up heat and a peculiar kind of arresting longing. But it’s nothing James could taste, something only available to Sirius now they have shared this twining of togetherness. “That’s all me, darling.”

“What a shame,” Regulus agrees, tangling a hand through Sirius’ hair as he rests his head on Lily’s shoulder. “You stink of him, you know.”

Sirius raises a lecherous eyebrow and grins. “Oh, I know.”

“Do you think he’ll stay?” Lily asks, her voice slow and soft for how tangled together they are, pleasure still thrumming brightly through her veins.

“I don’t want to give him a choice,” Sirius says, the sharpness of his words mollified by the timbre of his voice, Regulus’ hand in his hair, scrubbing idle circles, Lily’s arm around his waist, James’ chest pressed against his back.

“What about when we get hungry?” James says in a puff of breath against Sirius’ neck. Sirius tenses and he knows James notices it, but James’ tongue is loosened with blood and debauchery, hedonism unspooling him into idle threads.

“Then you’ll go and hunt, shan’t you?” Sirius spits, twisting his upper body to face James and pin him with a look that would have most people running for the hills. There has been untold centuries between James and Sirius though, and instead James just grins.

“Alright, love.” Regulus smiles, his fingers raking through Sirius’ hair and tugging softly like you would tug at the scruff of a dog’s neck. “I’m sure we can all control ourselves for Sirius’ little pet, can’t we?”

Lily laughs and presses a kiss to Sirius’ forehead and to the corner of James’ mouth. “We can all behave, if that’s what you want, Sirius.”

“Yes,” Sirius agrees, tipping his head back onto Lily’s shoulder as he lets his eyes flutter shut. Yes, that’s what he wants. He wants Remus here forever, to be at his beck and call and entice him with those wide, green eyes and the way his pulse flutters so deliciously when Sirius smiles.

Sirius drifts to some semblance of sleep, nothing close to a human slumber, but rest of some kind, knowing it’s best not to sleep next to Remus for the way they might wake up. Sirius doesn’t trust himself to keep a hold of the leash on the dark slice of his heart, the place in him that wants to own Remus’ throat whether or not it is attached to the rest of him, the place of him that wants to devour his heartbeat whole.

“…-n your neck?”

Sirius stirs to the sound of Regulus’ voice. He sounds uncharacteristically quiet, and Sirius isn’t sure for a moment whether it’s the conversation or whether he’s keeping his voice down to avoid waking his lovers.

“Yes…” It’s Remus’ voice, wavering a little, and the sound of it has Sirius’ eyes flying open, pushing himself into a sitting position. He just narrowly avoids putting himself between Regulus and Remus and instead turns to look at his brother.

“Sirius?” Remus’ hand falls on his shoulder, his fingers feather-light, inquisitive.

Regulus simply smiles, one corner of his mouth lifting along with a judgemental rise of one eyebrow. Sirius watches his eyes flicker between himself and Remus. “The neck, Sirius?” As if Remus isn’t there. Regulus is always so cool and collected, as if the vibrancy of his emotions have been shared between the others. But it’s always so welcome; a level head is useful when they are all starving and desperate. Except for now. Sirius doesn’t want Regulus to pull apart this peculiar possessiveness that has struck him. He’s not sure he can voice just how much he wants Remus to be his, how much he wants his mark all over Remus’ body.

Sirius pins Regulus with a look that would wither anyone else, but Regulus just smiles blithely and coils a strand of Lily’s hair around his fingers. His black eyes slide to Remus, who is still stood to the side, watching, unsure of what to do in the face of this stand-off, whether he should go to Sirius or run.

“We can talk later, Regulus,” Sirius confirms, sliding off the pile of furs, dislodging James’ hand from his hip and Lily’s arm from around his waist. Neither of them stir, only slide further together, James’ face tipping onto Regulus’ thigh.

“Can we?” Regulus’ raises an amused eyebrow, his fingers still knitting idly through Lily’s hair.

“Yes,” Sirius hisses, crossing the room to Remus and smiling at him. He looks mussed with sleep, his eyes warm and hazy, his skin so pink and vibrant. The bite on his neck seems lurid in the light and Sirius reaches out automatically to trail his fingers over it. Remus shivers and tilts into his touch like an animal just on the safe side of being tamed and Sirius forgets there is anyone else in the room for the way Remus looks at him, transported to another realm.

Over Sirius’ shoulder Regulus chuckles, but before he can say anything further Sirius has taken Remus by the arm and led him outside. Regulus’ laughter echoes as Sirius shuts the door. Remus, to his credit, doesn’t say anything, and just looks at him, bewildered.

The land is alive around them, the undergrowth rustling with creatures, the crickets chirping, the soft, ominous shift of plant matter that is more alive than it has any right to be. Sirius says nothing, letting his senses flare to seek out a rabbit or hare, something else that Remus might eat.

“I’m sorry about him,” Sirius admits after a moment of pause with his thoughts, turning to look at Remus properly, hands falling to his shoulders. “Are you alright?”

Remus frowns like he’s never been asked that question before. His mouth opens and closes again before he smiles softly. “Are you asking because you care, or because you want to know whether you can have me again?”

Sirius grins and winds an arm around Remus’ waist. His heartbeat hammers against his ribs, thundering through Sirius’ limbs and he’s so pleased to hear how strong it is, how well he has recovered from how deep Sirius had sank his teeth in. “Can it be both, dearest?”

Remus’ cheeks flare with the flush of blood as he loops his arms around Sirius’ neck, fingers circling through his hair. He presses close and the smile he gives when Sirius growls at the sensation tells Sirius he knows exactly what he’s doing. Sirius slides a hand down his back to grip his arse and doesn’t let him pull away. The change in Remus is instantly recognisable, the way he shifts from coy and coquettish to wanton and desperate; it’s wholly endearing and eats away at the careful underpinnings of Sirius’ sanity. Sirius wonders how much of it is the magnetism that occupies his very cells and how much of it is their sizzling chemistry that is also addling his thoughts with need. Their bodies slide together, Sirius’ mouth tipping over the high points of Remus’ cheeks as if he can _taste_ the flush there. Remus is moving against him, his hands bracing on Sirius’ arms and Sirius is sure he’ll never be anything less than half-hard around this creature near-rutting against him.

“I thinkit can,” Remus gasps, his eyes shuttering. “ _Oh._ Both. I feel— _ah_ , fine, and you can, _you can._ ”

Sirius’ grin is feral and dark as he manages to peel himself away from Remus and hold him at arm’s length. Every fibre in his body is screaming for release, to kiss and lick and bite, to fuck, to take and have and keep. But Sirius knows that if he gives himself the small mercy of kissing Remus, in an instant he will have him naked and begging with his blood in Sirius’ mouth and he can’t do that yet. Remus needs food and rest before Sirius can allow himself the Eden of tasting him again.

“Sirius?” Remus murmurs, pitching forward to seek out Sirius’ mouth with his own, his eyes glassy and almost-unseeing. Sirius almost gives in. But he wants the hunger to consume them both too, selfishly he wants to memorise what it is like to want something so wholly. He hasn’t wanted like this in so long that he wants to preserve it in the amber of Remus’ flesh.

Sirius holds him by the shoulders and levels his black gaze at him. “No. Not yet.” The words sound strangled out of his own mouth, like they’re coming from somewhere else with the way his body resents them. The dark sliver of him throws itself bodily against the confines of his rationality and screams to be let out. He wants to _take_. A taste isn’t enough, he wants him all. “You need something to eat, and to rest some more. Then—” Sirius’ thumb feathers over the pulse tapping out a pleasant rhythm against Remus’ collarbone— “we can do whatever you desire.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always thanks to Jencala for the beta and cheerleading, and thanks to _you_ for reading and being here with me!

The rabbit is easy enough to catch, no match for Sirius’ speed in the terrain he knows so well. Remus builds a fire whilst Sirius snatches the rabbit and Sirius finds him hunched over the wood, trying to coax a spark from two pieces of tinder. Affection—he’s sure that’s what it is—flares in the pit of Sirius’ stomach as he watches the avid concentration flit across Remus’ face, tongue between his teeth, brow furrowed.

Sirius digs in his pocket for his relic of pre-Gaia—a lighter. Always kept in his inside pocket, always useful as a bargaining chip to light a fire or in the rare occasions he has actually kept company with humans who do actually need fire, to charm them with the ease of it. Sirius drops into an elegant recline next to Remus and idly flicks the lighter to life at the end of a piece of kindling.

“What’s that?” Remus says instantly, leaning closer to peer at the lighter. If Sirius hadn’t been sure he was born after Gaia then now he knows. Remus jerks back a little when the flames catch and the fire springs to life.

“It’s a lighter, dearest.” Sirius waits until the flames are licking higher before he dampens the flame of the lighter and revels in the wondrous expression on Remus’ face. “It has fuel here—” Sirius leans a little closer to allow him to see—“And a small piece of flint to spark a flame.”

“I’ve never seen one of those before…” Remus’ eyes flicker bright in the firelight and they set Sirius’ insides burning.

“They’re old,” Sirius says, unable to stop himself reaching out with his free hand to trace the cut of the light along Remus’ cheek. “Quite old, from the early 21st century, just before Gaia.”

Remus hums and tilts his head into Sirius’ hand like he’s never been touched with reverence like this before. Behind his shoulder the fire takes, snapping and shifting, alive in its own way.

Sirius nods towards the rabbit, in a hurry to get Remus fed and rested so that he can tend to his own needs blazing at the back of his throat. “What do you need to do to that, hm?”

Remus raises a curious eyebrow in his direction before he leans forward to snatch up the rabbit with one hand and retrieve a knife from the pocket of his trousers with the other. That particular look of concentration settles across his features again, tongue between his teeth, brow furrowed. “I keep forgetting you don’t need to eat as I do… You’ve never skinned a rabbit, have you?”

Sirius smiles and leans back on his hands to observe Remus’ skilled fingers. By all rights he shouldn’t be hungry for three or four days, maybe more with both the human man from the Square and Remus’ carotid artery only a few hours earlier. But he’s starving, ravenous for another taste of this man. “Not for many centuries, no.”

Remus pauses with the knife in his hand for a moment and Sirius wonders if he will comment on Sirius’ age, but he doesn’t. Instead he sets his tongue between his teeth and begins skinning the rabbit over a large flat stone with quick, precise movements. Sirius realises quickly that watching Remus doing something so otherwise arbitrary will be nothing of the sort in his capable hands. The iron rich blood of the rabbit spills over his fingers and onto the stone and the smell assails Sirius like a brick wall; the heady combination of Remus’ own scent, the smell of his skin, his breath, his blood beating so close to the surface entwined with the rich, gamey smell of the rabbit is near impossible to resist.

As soon as Remus skewers the prepared rabbit meat onto a sharpened stick and sets it over the fire, Sirius is on him, pulling Remus’ first and second fingers to his mouth, his tongue sliding over them in broad, flat strokes, imagining it is Remus’ blood and not the rabbit’s.

“Ah— _Sirius_.” Remus’ voice quivers as Sirius takes his fingers into the warmth of his mouth, black eyes flickering up to his face, lips sliding down to the second knuckle.

A growl resonates around Remus’ fingers—they’re so warm and taste _so good_ bloody—as Sirius’ tongue slides deftly between them. It’s nowhere near as satisfying as Remus’ blood, the high won’t be nearly as intense, but it still makes his head spin with delight. With one quick movement Sirius hauls Remus onto his lap, knees either side of his thighs, and wraps his free arm around Remus’ waist to keep him there. Sirius usually prides himself on being well put-together—he’s only particularly feral when he’s incredibly hungry (or when James riles him up)—but there is something about Remus that makes Sirius sure he would raze entire civilisations to have him.

Remus grinds his hips down against Sirius’ crotch, well-timed with a swipe of Sirius’ tongue against the pads of his fingers, and the combination of it—so similar are the sensations that he may as well be feeling Sirius’ mouth on his cock—draws an airy moan from his mouth. That noise sounds like the greatest symphony Sirius has ever heard and his eyelids flutter in pleasant satisfaction at the way Remus tilts his head back and his body sinks ever closer to Sirius’.

Euphoria is swirling around Sirius’ mind, addled, foggy, with one bloody objective, as he draws back from Remus’ fingers and slides his tongue down to the lines of his palm to sweep up every drop of blood. Remus responds with another sharp cant of his hips as Sirius gives his wrist a possessive squeeze—his pulse thunders and thunders—before dropping his hand and snatching up the other. Remus’ free hand immediately tangles in Sirius’ hair and his body jolts again.

“I could devour you _whole_ , Remus,” Sirius murmurs, nipping gently at the pads of Remus’ fingers.

“Gaia, _yes, please_.” Remus holds his gaze, his green eyes wide, pupils blown black with hard-pressed desire, as Sirius’ lips part to slide his fingers in again. They taste of the jungle, of fire, woodsmoke, and _blood_ , iron, ambrosia, ichor—Remus is otherworldly in every sense of the word and it pushes at every boundary of Sirius’ self that he has never even approached before.

Sirius’ body is one long coil of tension under Remus’, the snap of his hips forward, pushing his cock against Sirius’ abdomen, the cleft of his arse pressing against Sirius’ cock, every thrum of his pulse humming through Sirius like lightning. His head is spinning and whirling with the dangerous combination of Remus’ skin and the rabbit blood, his airy little moans out into the wilderness, just as wild, feral, frightening.

“Think you could come like this, dearest?” Sirius growls into Remus’ palm, his tongue coiling there to follow this path of ambrosia, the rough timbre of his voice at odds with such a term of endearment but it flows happily from his tongue with Remus against him like this.

 _I know I could_ is on the tip of Sirius’ bloodied, questing tongue when Remus shakes his head overtop another airy, keening sigh. Sirius’ teeth scrape over Remus’ palm, leaving red welts but somehow, just barely, he doesn’t break the skin. His fingers tighten around Remus’ wrist. “No?”

“I want you— _ah_ —oh Gaia, Sirius, please— I want more,” Remus grinds out, his free hand winding through Sirius’ hair to instinctively try to tug him closer. Sirius resists just to feel the tension snarl across his scalp with the way Remus’ fingers are pulling broad swathes of his hair.

Sirius pauses with his mouth pressed to Remus’ pulse, hammering under the pale-blue veining of his inner wrist. _Take, take, take,_ the hunger demands, the hunger at the back of his throat, the hunger in the pit of his belly—he wants to take in every sense of the word. But he doesn't let himself sink his teeth in—not yet, not until Remus has rested, as much as both of them wanted otherwise. He lets his tongue swirl over the tender, intimate skin of Remus’ wrist in substitute for his blood, the taste still there, more a scent than a taste, but it's enough for him to regain his senses.

Sirius drops Remus’ hands—clean of blood now and the tips of his fingers vaguely slick with Sirius’ spit, but he doesn't dwell on that for thought of what those hunter’s fingers can do—and seizes his hips to stop Remus’ movements. “Will your rabbit be done?”

Remus scoffs, wriggling against Sirius’ hands. His face is flushed, all down his neck and to the inverted triangle of skin showing at the collar of his shirt, and his eyes are pleasure-bright beneath the sweat-damp curls falling onto his forehead. “What? Sirius… c’mon, ple—”

Sirius leans up and kisses Remus on the mouth as a shortcut to silence him. Remus tries to lead the kiss, his mouth open in invitation, his tongue coiling over Sirius’, but Sirius keeps it short and pulls back. “Eat your rabbit, if it's done. Or that’s all you're getting, dear heart.”

“ _Hell’s roots_ , you're serious, aren't you?” Remus asked, slumping a little, still gasping for breath.

One corner of Sirius’ mouth lifts in a sardonic smile. “Deadly. Now eat.”

Remus quirks an eyebrow, but he sits back on his heels and when Sirius releases his hips, he crawls from Sirius’ lap towards the fire. Sirius tries to pretend Remus on all fours doesn't set his insides swirling and instead focuses on the smirk the man gives him—he _knows_ just what he’s doing to Sirius and relishes it. Perhaps he too likes the way their chemistry pushes at the cage Sirius keeps the feral part of himself locked in. Perhaps he likes the danger of it—boredom in humans is always a worrisome thing.

Sirius watches as Remus retrieves the rabbit meat from the fire and prods at it with a forefinger. “Is it done?”

“A little rare. But the sooner I eat it the sooner you'll have me.”

“Oh? Is that so?” Sirius raises an eyebrow, his eyes flickering down Remus’ body to see the swell beneath the waistband of his trousers and the flush still sticking fast to his throat and chest. Sirius can smell the arousal coming off him in waves, like a beacon that Sirius wants to tear apart to find the source of the beckoning light. But he needs to be responsible.

“Yes,” Remus says with surety, smiling as he sits back on his haunches and bites into the rabbit meat. He does so purposefully, for show, for Sirius to watch. His teeth are straight and surprisingly white, and Sirius can immediately imagine them closing around the skin of his own neck, shoulder, earlobe, bottom lip, meat of his thigh, crease of his hip. Sirius blinks to try and stir away the slowly reddening haze of _take, take, take_ that is descending in the wake of Remus’ petulant seduction. _Rare meat_ , as it turns out, means still pink, still _bloody_ , and the sight of Remus’ fine, white teeth in such red meat, reddish juices making his already pink lips shine, ensures Sirius has to call on every reason he has not to tear Remus’ clothes from his body and ravish every inch of him. He takes a deep breath and lets his eyes flicker shut for a moment whilst Remus eats.

“Are you alright, Sirius?” Remus says as he finishes the morsel, his face a picture of innocence as he licks his fingers clean. The lightness of his voice pulls on the threads of Sirius’ indulgence with this man and they snap. In a second he has Remus flat on his back, looming over him, hands either side of his head caging him in. Remus goes _very_ still—his prey instinct kicking in—and his breath huffs out of him for the impact in a sharp _ooft_ , but he does not look away. He stares up at Sirius with those wide eyes, as if he’s _daring_ him to do something, as if there’s a streak of predator within him too, if Sirius didn’t already know that from his fine, white teeth and his wry little smile and the way he moves through the wilderness.

“You are remarkably insolent for a human, Remus,” Sirius murmurs, voice harder than it has been before. He leans down to snuff his nose over Remus’ cheekbone and then down to his jaw. His fangs leave soft little red marks on the skin and Remus squirms beneath him, his breath in puffs over Sirius’ face. “It’s almost as if you’re heedless of the fact you keep company with something that might look human, but is resoundingly not.” His teeth scrape along Remus’ jawbone. Remus’ pulse rabbits high under his flesh now with Sirius over him. “It’s fortunate I’m fond of you or it would be irritating.” His voice is still stone, an undercurrent there of _you’re pushing this, dear heart_ , _be careful_.

Remus smiles, the corners of his mouth quirking upwards as he holds Sirius’ gaze. The flush creeps over his face and he looks ethereal and stunning. He bites his lip and slowly, aware he’s facing a predator, wary of sudden movements, so very slowly, he slides his arms above his head and stretches out. His wrists cross over above his head and his shirt rides up a little with the motion and his chin tilts up to bare his throat.

Sirius groans with the way Remus submits—only just, as if it’s all a game for him—and sinks one knee down to press their bodies close together. “It’s almost like,” he murmurs into Remus’ ear and shivers at the way the man keens, “you enjoy courting danger, don’t you, sweetling?”

“I think you know already, Sirius,” Remus breathes, his chin tipping up, his eyes fluttering shut in some gesture of trust, acceptance, submission.

“Ohhh, _Remus_.” Sirius fastens their mouths together in a kiss, his tongue swiping for entrance that Remus grants immediately. His arms stay above his head, pliant, obedient—for now—but one leg comes up to wrap around Sirius’ thighs and pull their bodies together. Sirius moans sharply at the feel of their hard cocks pressing together— _Gaia_ , he’s been hard since he woke up—and grinds down against Remus.

When he pulls back Remus is panting softly, his lips pink, his eyes beautifully glazed. “You like running your mouth, don’t you?” Sirius asks, bringing his hand up to press at the swell of Remus’ bottom lip with his forefinger. To his utter delight, Remus’ lips part and his tongue touches the pad of Sirius’ finger like an invitation.

Remus nods and hums something in agreement but Sirius isn’t sure whether it’s to his question or the intrusion of his fingers but he takes it to mean both and presses his finger into Remus’ warm mouth. Remus’ eyes darken and Sirius hears his pulse pick up and his body shifts against the ground.

“I think, perhaps then, you can keep talking and tell me exactly what you’d have me to do to you, dearest.”


	6. Chapter 6

Remus’ reaction is instantaneous; his whole body tightens and his pupils dilate and his scent shifts to desperation as he practically whines around Sirius’ finger. When Sirius pulls back he follows for a moment before sinking back against the ground.

“What do you want, sweetling?”

Remus swallows once, twice, before his voice leaps from his throat, rough hewn and fucked out already. “I want you inside me,” he tumbles out in a rush, his eyes fixed to Sirius’ mouth, to the pucker of his fangs on his bottom lip. “And I want you to bite me.” There’s no hesitation there, simply matter-of-fact, and the sound of his voice makes Sirius’ hips snap forward of their own volition to press his cock against Remus’. Remus whimpers.

Despite the rush of desire, Sirius raises a bemused eyebrow. “Surely not right away? I want details, dear thing. Tell me _everything_.”

Remus shifts uncomfortably, lifting his hips to try and gain some friction. “You know what I want, Sirius— _please_.”

Sirius smiles benevolently and inclines his head. “Clothes off then.” When Remus makes to shimmy out from underneath him, Sirius stays him with a hand on his chest. “Right here. Underneath me.”

Remus nods, his hands already jumping to the waistband of his trousers to pull them open and push them down. Sirius, his hair falling in a curtain around them, watches the desperate way Remus fumbles open the material. When he lifts his hips to push them down properly his bare cock presses against Sirius’ thigh and it’s so warm that Sirius can’t resist wrapping his fingers, still spit-slicked from Remus’ mouth, around it and stroking languidly over him. Remus’ face flickers with tension and his hips lift, but Sirius keeps the pressure torturously light.

“And your shirt, sweetling,” Sirius instructs, watching the tip of Remus’ cock disappear into his fist over and over.

Suppressing a moan, Remus pulls his shirt over his head but leaves the fabric tangled around his wrists. Sirius isn’t sure whether Remus is too hurried to care or if he likes it like that until he reaches up to twist the fabric tighter around Remus’ wrists and he moans like Sirius is fucking him already.

“ _Oh,_ you like that, don’t you?” Sirius mutters around a smile, twisting his wrist slightly at the end of each stroke. “What else do you want, Remus? You have to tell me.”

Remus’ eyelids flutter. “I want y- I want you naked. I want to see you.”

Sirius kisses him softly, his tongue licking between the seam of Remus’ lips. “You promise to stay still if I let go?” Remus nods, his pulse hammering wildly in Sirius’ ears now. He is hungry, but not just for Remus’ blood. He wants every last inch of this man, he wants to have him, own him, _keep_ him. “Good.”

Sitting back on his heels, Sirius strips off his clothes. He’s in no hurry, enjoying far too much the way Remus’ gaze ravages him as if he is the one with the insatiable hunger. Sirius shucks his shirt and trousers to reveal his lean body. It’s muscled and corded in the same way a jungle cat’s would be—for purpose, to hunt, to kill. Magic weaves through his bones, stronger, faster, lithe and powerful. Remus’ hearbeat picks up when Sirius is naked before him; Sirius can hear it like a drum ordering him into battle.

Remus stays as still as Sirius would expect a brat like him to—only barely within the confines of the given order, his limbs in roughly the same places, but writhing against the constant hum of pleasure through them. If begging were a movement, then Remus would be incoherently pleading. Before Sirius sets his trousers aside he retrieves a small bottle of oil from the pocket, eternally grateful he had swiped it from amongst the trio’s furs earlier. Gaia knows they need it more than he does usually—if Sirius thinks his sex life is adventurous he has to only take one look at the hedonistic acrobatics James, Lily and Regulus perform to be reminded of his own banality—but right now Sirius thinks if he doesn’t have Remus he might well die.

“What do you want, dear heart?” Sirius asks again, unstopping the bottle and pouring some onto his fingers, one eyebrow raised in feigned nonchalance when his very soul is pushing against the boundaries of his body in search for the Eden of Remus and all he can offer.

Remus lets his legs fall open, his arms still above his head, and he has to blink several times before his eyes focus on Sirius. “Your fingers, Sirius— _please_. C’mon, you know what I want. _Fuck me_.”

The sound of his voice makes Sirius want to fuck his throat but no, he has other ideas and he’s sure Remus will unravel himself on the spools of unfettered desire if Sirius doesn’t fuck him. Sirius hitches Remus’ leg up around his hips—Remus’ back bows from the ground to help him, his fingers clenching around the fabric of his shirt and the makeshift cuffs it has become—and pets a slick finger over Remus’ hole. It twitches under his touch and Remus moans beautiful and low. Sirius presses into him slow and insistent and the ring of muscle resists only a fraction before allowing him into the tight warmth of Remus’ body.

Sirius’ other hand clenches white-knuckled around Remus’ flank—he hopes it will bruise—as his finger works in deeper, searching for Remus’ prostate. When he does find it, a curl of his finger later, the twinned sensation of Remus’ body clenching around his finger and the way he throws his head back in delirious pleasure to inadvertently bare Sirius’ teeth marked on his neck has Sirius’ entire body coiled along the tight path of pleasure. Sirius strokes his middle finger against Remus’ rim, delighting at the way it twitches under his attentions, before easing it into him alongside the first. Sirius doesn’t give him a moment to breath, relentless, wanting to overwhelm the man with pleasure because he can feel it in his body, hear it, smell it, taste it, how much Remus wants this, how his body is adjusting and taking everything Sirius gives him. In the moment Sirius does in fact feel as if he owns this, owns the body sprawled beneath him, owns Remus, to do with what he will. The idea is frighteningly powerful.

“What do you want, Remus?” Sirius asks when Remus is making rasping little keening noises with every fuck of Sirius’ fingers into him, pushing back down to try and get more. His fine, white teeth are lodged in his bottom lip, biting so hard Sirius thinks he might break the skin and draw blood. He leans forward and brushes his thumb across Remus’ lower lip to free it from his teeth, feeling the blood rushing there. “Don’t bite, sweetling. That’s my job. Your blood’s just for me, isn’t it?” It sounds like an order, not a question.

Remus keens sharply and lifts his hips against a merciless twist of Sirius’ fingers. “Yes, Gaia, yes, yes. C’mon, Sirius, _hell’s roots_ , come _on_.”

Sirius thinks for a moment of making Remus beg, truly, truly beg and plead, but he finds he likes the way Remus asks as if he’s telling, pleads as if he’s ordering. It’s wildly endearing and a glorious thing when buttressed against the facets of Sirius that enjoy being pushed and entertained after being feared and revered all at once for so long. His own cock twitches for attention between his legs as if to say _get on with it_ and his world narrows to Remus, that hallowed winding path through the garden of his body towards Eden and what feels like, at this point, his salvation. He removes his fingers and kneels up a little, one hand on his cock to press it against the warmth of Remus’ body, watching and delighting at the way that pink ring of muscle twitches in anticipation.

“Since you asked so nicely,” Sirius murmurs, a smile dancing across his lips as he pushes into Remus on a slow thrust of his hips, the ripple of muscle spreading up his back and down his thighs, but Sirius only feels the track of satisfaction draw ever nearer. Beneath him Remus hisses out a long breath and his eyelids flutter. His mouth falls open and he shudders and his breath shivers out of him until Sirius is fully seated, his hips flush against Remus’ thighs, a knee thrown over his arm.

It’s _glorious_ in the true sense of the word. Glory like the highest honour, glory like a thing of indescribable beauty and Remus looks so stunning sprawled about beneath him, his hips hitched up to allow Sirius to fuck into him the way they both want. Sirius pitches forward, one hand on Remus’ thigh—it has bruised already, wonderfully blue—and reaches up with the other to twist the fabric around his wrists tighter. Remus lets out a sharp little breath and his eyes go glassy and warm.

“Is this what you want, dearest?” Sirius hisses, leaning down—heedless of the stretch bound to pull along the back of Remus’ leg—to press his mouth against Remus’ ear. Remus moans but doesn't answer immediately so Sirius tightens his grip on Remus’ wrist and responds with a sharp snap of his hips forwards, burying deep into him. “Me— _ah_ —holding you down, fucking you, hard, deep? _Gaia_ , you feel so good.”

Remus throws his head back to moan sharply. He's learning quickly to answer and has to gasp for breath at the way Sirius is fucking all coherent thought from him before he speaks. “Yes, yes. _More_ , Sirius. Come _on_.” Like an order again and Sirius finds his mouth buried against Remus’ throat to feel every one of his little yelps before he can blink.

“So bossy, sweetling,” Sirius grits out, grasping for the threads of his own unraveling to keep them bound together for a few moments longer. He twists his fingers tighter into the makeshift cuffs around Remus’ wrists, toying with the idea of letting them go to feel the burning of Remus’ touch, like a torch to those threads. But the noises Remus makes with the pressure of fabric against his wrists and the way Sirius is thrusting into him are too marvellous to relinquish. He can have Remus’ hands on him another time.

Sirius’ eyes flicker up at the sound of movement through the trees. It’s not unusual—the wilderness is alive around them in the only way an almost-sentient forest under the guide of a vengeful spirit can be—but Sirius recognises the scent. He finds James and Regulus by their building, sat at the foot of one wall, Regulus straddling James’ waist, trading idle kisses the way centuries-old lovers are wont to do. Both of their eyes keep flickering over to Sirius and Remus through the undergrowth, and although Remus can’t see them from his current position, something feral and prideful singes through Sirius’ veins. He has seen the trio fuck more often than he can count, and now for them to watch him and this descendant of the Old Gods seems like perfect poetry. Sirius looks back down to Remus, his black eyes burning, and Remus stares back up at him, his face creased with every pulse of pleasure through him.

“Oh, _Gaia_ , Sirius.” Remus is twisting against the dirt beneath them, as if he’s trying to break Sirius’ grip but relishing it all the same, his narrow hips snapping up to meet Sirius’ at the end of every delicious, sharp thrust. “Gai— _ah!_ Bite me, please—” Remus tips his head back to bare his throatand his shoulders peel off the ground to try and press up towards Sirius— “ _Please_ , c’mon, come _on_ , _hell’s roots_ , I want your teeth on me, please.”

Desire rages along Sirius’ veins and he knows he shouldn’t bite him, not so soon, not with the way Remus pushes his boundaries, not with the way he can feel control slipping and spinning away from him. But Remus is _asking_ , as close as Sirius thinks the other man will ever get to begging, and it sounds so sweet on his tongue and he tastes _so good_. Sirius leans down, pressing his mouth along the swell of Remus’ throat—he’s so warm, so alive—and feeling him shiver as Sirius’ tongue coils down to the angle of his shoulder. Sirius’ orgasm snaps against the confines of him but he staves it off with a growl, he wants this to last. Sirius tests the sharp of his teeth against the thin skin of Remus’ collarbone and the man moans, his shoulders lifting from the ground again to try and push closer, his body clenching around Sirius’ cock with every thrust now, close to orgasm without Sirius touching him at all.

 _Just a taste_ , Sirius tells himself before he sinks his teeth into Remus’ collarbone and the warm blood blooms into his mouth. Remus yelps into the forest around them and his body spasms as his orgasm thrashes against him and he tightens and shudders, little half moans cut off by great gasping lungfuls of air. Sirius wants to watch his face, but his neck and the blood there is far more enthralling as he laps at the rich liquid there, trying not to gulp. The taste of Remus and the way the potent blood goes straight to his head has Sirius thrusting, once, twice more before he comes with the taste of Remus’ blood in his mouth and Remus’ arse clenching around his cock. Sirius’ vision turns white for a moment, flashes like the shards of light that punch through the canopy of trees to the sound of Remus gasping beneath him. When Sirius comes down, hips rolling slowly against Remus’, his tongue is still curling gently over the blood trickling from that bite, mixing with the sweat that has gathered in the dip there for how close the forest is and how strenuous their fucking has been.

With a shudder Sirius sinks into Remus, surprisingly comforted by the way he has gone boneless against the floor. He’s high, high as he’s ever been with their bodies joined in this twinned way, through blood and come in the midst of this wilderness. Blood is still gathering against Remus’ collarbone—the bite catches the light beautifully and the ruby blood is thrown into all sorts of glorious facets of light like a stained-glass window—and Sirius can’t get enough of it, letting it gather and lapping gently at it in tandem with the pulses of Remus’ body around him.

“Ohhh, Mother take us, Sirius, you—that—” Remus sounds dreamy, his voice thick in his throat with the heavy blanket of completion and satisfaction settling over them both. Sirius releases his hold on Remus’ wrists and slowly, as if waking from a dream, the man rolls his shoulders and lifts his arms. One hand gently brushes a wave of hair by Sirius’ temple, as if he’s too afraid to touch him, as if the mirage might disappear as Remus smiles muzzily at him.

Sirius hums and continues to swirl his tongue over the bite. He knows he should close the wound but Remus is like a drug and his blood pushes Sirius into some liminal space where nothing is important except the taste of him and the way his pulse floods through every mouthful. Sirius’ cock slips out of Remus and he hisses softly. Perhaps they have been too rough, but Remus looks as glassy-eyed as Sirius feels, and when Sirius pulls back, Remus kisses him soundly on his bloody mouth. Sirius sighs into the kiss like it’s a weight from his shoulders and Remus hums and Sirius wants for nothing in the entire world.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some depictions of violence here. I think they're sort of graphic (I am bad at telling these things), but it's fighty-violence not sexy-biting violence, and not domestic abuse, don't worry. Be careful with yourself if that kind of thing is not your friend!

Sirius wakes with the sun at its zenith, pulled from a deep slumber by the sudden intrusion into his senses. He only knows it’s midday because his skin itches with centuries of vampiric distaste for the sun; something that hasn’t abated since Gaia, despite the rays never reaching the surface anymore. Immediately he senses something is wrong though and when he slips from the bed and strides to the next room James, Lily and Regulus are already awake.

Sirius had relented and slept next to Remus for the past two days, the allure of him too strong to resist curling up next to his warm body when the sun begins to rise. Remus has been with them for five sunsets now and he and Sirius have spent it wound up in each other, fucking in every way imaginable. Remus has a line of bites along the flat of his shoulder blade Sirius had traced with his tongue until the other man had fallen asleep at sunrise a few hours ago, but he does not dwell on that now.

“What is it?” Sirius asks, pulling on his trousers as James stands at the window. James rounds both Regulus and Lily out with his easy smile and disarming nature, but here at the window, defending their territory like a predator, James looks foreboding and sharp.

“Humans,” Lily answers shortly. “Looking for trouble.” She squeezes Regulus’ shoulder before stepping out of the house and striding towards the clearing, ever fearless. James presses after her, his mouth set in a hard line and Regulus, the youngest of them by fifty years, nods at Sirius before following his lovers out. Sirius is on his heels, anger already roiling through him and tightening at his chest.

The humans are in the clearing already, twelve of them perhaps, huddled together in a group, wary little beady eyes staring at the four approaching vampires. Sirius doesn’t think they are here to chat.

Lily and James take the lead, friendly and diplomatic. Sirius hangs back because there is something churning in him and if any of those humans so much as take one step towards the place where Remus is sleeping then he will rip them limb from limb and thoroughly fucking enjoy it.

Sirius gets his wish when one of them steps too close to Lily and gets in her face, spitting vitriol about how they are curses and abominations and against Mother Nature—that makes Sirius laugh, aren’t the most beloved children usually lavished with gifts?—and to leave the humans alone or else they will make life difficult for them. Lily smiles benignly up at him—looking every bit the unassuming washerwoman Sirius and James found her as so long ago—and leans close to whisper that they really should leave the clearing before they get into trouble when the human stabs her in the stomach with a knife from his pocket. Lily hisses in pain and drags the man close to snap her teeth around his throat in retaliation. In an instant, all hell breaks loose. Regulus and James had been standing on either side of Lily, stalwart and silent, until that line had been crossed; as soon as anyone laid a hand on Lily the two were unstoppable.

A human moves towards Sirius, where he’d unconsciously positioned himself between the group and the house—and Remus—and Sirius finds that indeed, nothing will stop any of them. A slight against his family is a slight against him. It’s easy to overpower one human—Sirius’ strength and speed will always win out, fighting with teeth and claws—but it’s harder to win against three. The first time he sinks his teeth into a forearm and the man screams it’s almost as if Sirius slides free of his body and it is on auto-pilot, spinning and whirling around. Sirius plays pretend at being human, can look like one, act like one, move like one, but he is an animal, and the three protecting their home in the clearing with him are animals too.

Sirius pities humans, above all, and so he reluctantly parries a few blows and bites in those non-lethal places and grasps Lily by the arm to ensure she is in fact alright between all the madness. She flashes bloody teeth at him in an answer, furious at negotiations going so sour. Lily _hates_ disrespect. So Sirius is pulling punches, wasting time, until one of the humans breaks off in a run towards the house— _hell’s roots_ —shouting something about _killing the rest of them_.

Then all bets are off.

Sirius is on the man before he even realises, the fire and hatred burning him and snarling up out of his mouth like it’s the fucking end of the world all over again. He has his teeth lodged in the man’s throat, ripping at shards of flesh, before he can blink. _He’s mine_ , he wants to scream. _Don’t touch him, he’s_ ** _mine._**

All Sirius tastes is blood, feral, raging, ruby red blood. Protectiveness flares from his chest and radiates down to his fingertips as he moves with blurring speed and sharp focus. The animal part of him, bayed by blood and the threat to his family, only wants one thing; It wants to destroy the threat. The logical part of Sirius’ brain hopes Remus is staying inside. He must be awake now with the sheer chaos unfolding in the clearing, but he is a clever man and Sirius believes—hopes—he will stay out of it, purely for his own sanity. He wants Remus safe, he wants every divine hair on his head to remain untouched save for Sirius’ fingers buried between them. The animal part of him, swirling and untethered and high, just wants blood and revenge.

When Sirius can finally see straight through the red haze again, he watches Regulus chase the single surviving human towards the tree-line. Regulus hauls him back and snaps his neck with a frightening efficiency that makes pride in Sirius’ chest bloom through all of the adrenaline. Sirius looks around and he is standing over two corpses, bloodied and mangled. By his teeth. Panting hard, Sirius turns to James and Lily as Regulus moves back to them.

“Okay?” He breathes, closing the gap between them. The first time Sirius had to kill a human he had been overcome with remorse for weeks after. His hands had shook for days. Then Minerva took him aside and said that humans would kill him simply for what he is. They would not understand the gifts they have and they would hate him for it. It was either _kill or be killed_. Sirius had not felt remorse after that. Minerva’s words only echoed louder after Gaia; the world had become so hostile that it was dog-eat-dog out there; Sirius, James, Lily and Regulus were the top of the food chain.

“Fine,” James replies, his mouth buried in Lily’s hair—it shines even redder with blood—and his arm around her waist. Regulus is against James’ side, breathing heavily, his eyes dark, endless pits.

Lily nods and wipes her mouth on the back of her hand, smearing blood all over her chin. She will heal. It takes more than a few inches of knife in the stomach to kill something three centuries old. The trio are _covered_ in blood from the fight; arterial spray is messy and leaves puddles and splashes across their bodies and the earth beneath their feet. Usually, wasting blood like this would be an almost unforgivable slight for a vampire—blood is so rare and precious that, as much as it felt good to revel in it, feel it run down your chin, drip from your fingers, trickle down your body, it was an awful idea to waste it like that—but after a certain amount of adrenaline and fear, blood becomes bitter and lacks nourishment, worthy only as fuel for the bloodlust, the rage.

Perhaps the blood of humans like that is better to be wasted, giving back to Mother Nature and feeding her instead.

Sirius is spinning, his head is winding in circles and his body feels sticky and blood is still running down his chin and sprayed across his face. He presses a kiss to Lily’s forehead, one to the corner of James’ mouth and one to Regulus’ temple. The affection he feels for them burns through his veins now that they are all safe and he takes a comforting breath there. Sirius still doesn’t relish killing handfuls of humans, but when the line is crossed he is merciless about it. Coming to his house and stabbing his sister really was incredibly rude. When he steps back, satisfied for now and in search of other things, Regulus presses his mouth to Lily’s and his body to James’ and Sirius turns around to give them privacy. He sees euphoria, woozy and light, running through the trio like they are already one being, and feels it well enough through his own veins, directing him back towards the house.

When Sirius steps through the doorway—more like staggers, really, he’s so high from the fight and the blood he’s currently drenched in—Remus is there, at the far end of the room, in just his trousers, a fur slung over his shoulders like a cloak. Sirius’ bite marks shine across his upper torso and he’s struck with the urge to lick them, to do whatever in Gaia’s name Remus asks of him because everything is so pleasantly swimming that he doesn’t care. Single-minded in his quest, through the haze of euphoria, to make sure Remus is in fact unharmed, Sirius strides—staggers—across the room towards him.

Remus steps back.

It’s barely even a movement, something so subtle only Sirius would notice it—an imperceptible shifting of his weight backwards. His green eyes are wide, his shoulders drawn high, tension pulling through his body like a taut string, and Sirius remembers at once he’s covered in blood.

“Oh— _hell’s roots_. You find me frightening now, don’t you?” Sirius huffs like a sulking teenager, lifting a hand to wipe at the blood across his mouth but his hands and forearms are stained red too and it just makes it worse. He had thought for a moment that Remus might not be so bothered by Sirius being a supernatural entity. Perhaps he isn’t when it’s sexual and wrought with tension. But when he’s reminded that Sirius is in fact an animal that masquerades as human, he’s no longer interested. The thought snarls through Sirius; he is not going to let Remus go.

“You look—” Remus swallows and tightens the furs around his shoulders— “You look frightening, I suppose…” His gaze flickers down over Sirius’ form. He has no shirt on either, Sirius realises, swiping at the blood dripping from the ends of his hair and landing onto his bare shoulder. The smell of it is making him float and he tries hard to stay grounded and listen to Remus. “I don’t know that I’m frightened of you, though.” Remus cocks his head to the side as he speaks, as if he’s surprised by that idea, as if it’s been swimming around his head since they met eyes and has only just formed into cohesive thought now it has spilled out of his mouth.

Relief floods through Sirius, unexpected and violently warm. He wants to cross to Remus and snatch him up into bloody arms and refuse to allow him to leave. He wants Remus to stay by his side. He’s mortal, of course, as humans are, but Sirius has had paramours die before. Not since Gaia, though, not since blood has become short supply and Sirius’ emotions have dampened down to a still, stagnant pool. Every so often something breaks through with feeling, like a pebble in a vast ocean to be swallowed up by stillness again, but Remus? Remus makes him feel like raging rapids, like water frothing white, ready to crash ships against the shores and devour the remnants whole. He’s not used to _feeling_ so strongly and the resulting possessiveness over this man shrouded in furs is shocking.

Sirius pushes a hand over his face, blinking, slow and long, to try and shift the haze but he’s covered in blood and every inhale isn’t helping his intoxication and making him sway on the spot. “You’re not scared of me?” Sirius asks, vision swimming, his mouth open in a loose, almost goofy smile. Relief feels strange, affection feels strange, this odd brand of possessive fondness sits strangely with him like an ill-fitting jacket. He wants to tailor it.

Remus steps closer, just out of arm’s reach, and smiles softly to watch him. “No, I know you like me better alive, anyway, don’t you?” Remus sounds surer than he’s ever sounded before, and after a beat, two, three, he steps forward again and touches his fingertips to the swell of Sirius’ bottom lip.

“I do.” Sirius’ eyes shutter at the contact—how the tables have turned—of Remus’ warm flesh against his bloody mouth. He breathes deeply for a second, then, gripping heartily at his composure and schooling those roiling waves of his insides, he smiles, nipping at the pad of Remus’ finger. “I only hurt you when you ask me to, dear heart.”


	8. Chapter 8

If Sirius hadn’t been sure Remus was a descendant of the Old Gods before, then seeing him stride into the lake near the house cements all of his wonderings. The water is crystal clear and splashes around his legs as he strides, naked and grinning, towards Sirius. The lake is dangerous most of the time, teeming with wildlife. It’s something that started out as one of Mother Nature’s holy places, enforced shrines where people were dragged there by the living wilderness, forced to prostrate themselves in drowning waters, but the longer it has been, the less people make the pilgrimage. Right now, the rest of the wilderness seems to realise that the vampires in the water are the apex predators, and steer well clear.

The ruby swell of blood has blossomed out around Sirius, currently submerging his shoulders into the water then raking handfuls of it up over his face and hair, and when Remus enters that bloom it parts for him like the Red Sea or a field of poppies or the River Styx for its ferryman. Sirius sluices the bloody water from his face and grins at Remus, predatory and sharp, and the grin Remus offers back is _beautiful_.

“You suit the wilderness,” Sirius says, stepping closer and winding an arm around Remus’ waist. The water is only waist-high, but it’s so clear and blue that Sirius can see through to where Remus’ hand settles on the plane of his stomach.

“Do I?” Remus replies, bemused, one corner of his mouth lifting up.

“Mhmm.” Sirius fits his mouth to a scarred-silver carbon copy of it on Remus’ collarbone. He’s littered with them, brands of Sirius’ affection and possessiveness and marks that go some way to try and explain how Remus’ presence fuels Sirius in more ways than his blood. “Like some King of the Forest. Are you quite sure you aren’t a dryad or the Horned God in disguise?”

Remus’ head tips back as his arms wind around Sirius’ shoulders. The water is still trickling red from Sirius’ hair and over his upper arms and through Remus’ fingers and the man doesn’t seem to care. “Quite sure. I don’t know what either of those things are.”

“All the more reason you might be one then,” Sirius hums, swirling his tongue over the impression of his teeth. “The Horned God was a Pagan thing. It went through many revivals, before Gaia, before Mother Nature made herself known. Dryads are forest spirits. I think you’re definitely one of those.”

“I like that. Do they like vampires, these dryads?”

“I think this particular dryad does. And this particular vampire does.” Sirius’ reply is smooth and quick, his mouth trailing up to fasten to Remus’.

In spite of the events of the day, Remus sinks into the kiss and tightens his arms around Sirius’ neck. His tongue strokes over the seam of Sirius’ lips, begging access in that particular way Remus has of _telling_ , and with the way blood is still spinning through Sirius’ system, pooling around them, Sirius has to allow it. Remus hums happily, closing the gap between them. Sirius marvels at how receptive he is, after seeing Sirius as a vision of death dripping in blood that may as well be his.

“You know that will happen again,” Sirius says when they pull apart and Remus is panting, his eyes already halfway to glazed.

Remus bites his lip and Sirius brushes his thumb over that fine white canine. He’s becoming increasingly fond of Remus’ teeth, as straight, white and fine as they are, pondering occasionally on what it would feel like to have _Remus’_ teeth on his neck, but it’s a fleeting fancy of the impossible that he flits past. Remus smiles, muzzy and warm. “What will happen again? More people?”

“Mmmm—” Sirius brushes a curl of Remus’ damp hair from his forehead— “people trying to kill James, Lily, Regulus and I. People who will think you are here under the influence of something, perhaps.”

“Under the influence of your sexual prowess maybe,” Remus says, glittering. When Sirius throws his head back to laugh Remus presses a kiss to his jaw and huffs out his own little laugh. Sirius is wrong, not a dryad. A siren perhaps, calling him to rocks, a nymph perhaps, a companion of an Old God with a long-lost name to revel in debauchery, Oberon himself to lead Sirius into stone circles and hallowed clearings to enthral him forever.

“You minx.” Sirius nips at the shell of Remus’ ear, drawing a little gasp from him. When Remus presses closer his half-hard cock presses against Sirius’ hip. “But it will happen again. We’ll have to kill again.”

Remus captures a bead of pinkish water from Sirius’ top lip on the tip of his finger. “That’s okay.” He smiles. “If I stay.”

Sirius’ arm unconsciously tightens around Remus’ waist, biting in beneath his ribs. Sirius hears the man’s breath hitch from the tightness of it but does not relent. He feels dark and terrible and his voice comes out low. “You will stay.”

Remus looks as if he might be on the verge of laughing before Sirius speaks, but his face falls at the tone of Sirius’ voice and his hand moves to mould against the line of Sirius’ cheekbone. “I’m only teasing. I’ll stay. If you’ll have me, I’ll stay.”

Holding their gaze, startling green to black, Sirius tilts his head and sinks his teeth into the meat of Remus’ palm, like acceptance, agreement, ownership, all at once. He only lets the blood pool for a moment, just two puncture wounds instead of the teeth marks he leaves usually. He touches his thumb to the wound, the taste of Remus in his mouth, and smiles at him, teeth bloody until he rolls his tongue over them.

Remus lets his head fall onto Sirius’ shoulder. “That wasn’t very much.” His voice is light and lilting and his eyes have gone hazy again, misty and green like the low-lying fog of the mornings through the trees.

“You need it more than I do right now. I just wanted—” Sirius hums softly, searching for the word— “I just wanted you there. You’ll stay. I’ll have you. You’ll stay.”

“Yeah.”

Their moment of shared euphoria is broken by an amused shriek and a splash from across the lake. Sirius knows it’s Lily, can smell her, Regulus and James, can recognise her voice. The wind changes and their shared scent carries over—desire, excitement, love. Remus turns instinctively towards the noise and his eyebrows raise a ways towards his forehead. Sirius smiles, because he can smell the change in Remus too.

James, Regulus and Lily are entwined against the far side of the bank, far enough away to feel like privacy, close enough to be heedless of it. Lily is between James and Regulus, her face slack with pleasure as they kiss over her shoulder and writhe together as one being. Through the clear water it’s easy to see their limbs pressed together. Sirius knows the mechanics of it from experience—he’s been idly trying to do other things whilst they have been fucking (and occasionally watching himself) for long enough to know—but from this far away it just looks ethereal and poetic, artistic.

“Do you like watching them, sweetling?” Sirius mutters into the soft space behind Remus’ ear, moving behind him to trail kisses over the cords of his neck.

“Yeah,” Remus breathes, his pupils wide.

Sirius’ fingers slide downwards, over the quivering planes of Remus’ stomach, through the thatch of honey brown curls to ghost over his cock—more than half-hard now—and Remus sighs into him. His hips twitch forwards then, after a beat, he pushes back into Sirius, the cleft of his arse sliding against Sirius’ cock.

Smiling into the crook of Remus’ neck, Sirius wraps his fingers around the man’s cock and strokes idly, watching Remus watch the trio. His profile is so alluring in the reflected light of the lake, with the backdrop of the trio and Lily’s gasps. Sirius thinks her eyes flickered across to them a moment ago, thinks the trio must know they are there, must feel their gaze on them. But Sirius knows they have no decency between them, and having Remus here hasn’t changed anything. Remus watches, his cheeks flushed, and reaches up to tangle a hand through Sirius’ hair. Sirius tips into him and presses the lengths of their bodies together, hand moving slowly over him, his own cock pressed against Remus’ arse.

“ _Gaia_ , I wish I was inside you, dearest,” Sirius whispers, nudging his nose down Remus’ neck. Across the lake James groans a snarling thing that reverberates across the water. Remus’ eyes shutter and Sirius twins it with a twist of his wrist as his cock presses against Remus’ arse, feeling him shudder. “Like James is inside Regulus, like Regulus is inside Lily, hm? All of them all tangled together.” He presses his teeth over Remus’ pulse and it’s rabbiting high and thrumming. “Only I won’t share you.”

Remus moans sharply, pulls hard on Sirius’ hair as his orgasm cracks through him like a shard of light hitting the water. His hips jerk forward and his head falls back onto Sirius’ shoulder. “Oh, _hell—_ Sirius!”

Sirius strokes him through the throes of pleasure, preening at the sound of his name in Remus’ mouth, an arm tight around his waist to hold him up. Remus’ hand stays tight in Sirius’ hair, pulling, clenching, holding as Sirius’ mouth fits against the silver of a bite, not biting again, trying to maintain a semblance of awareness, the thrum of blood under his skin high enough.

As soon as Remus can stand, he turns and presses their bodies together, his hand in Sirius’ hair now pulling him close for a searing kiss. Sirius is a little shocked, Remus taking instead of asking, but then Remus’ fingers close around his cock, tight and deliciously skilled, and he stops thinking. Sirius moans into Remus’ mouth, their tongues coiling together, Remus’ catching on one canine. They kiss like it’s the only thing they need, devouring, teeth, tongues, hot breath, with Remus’ hand moving over Sirius’ cock as if his sole purpose in life is to bring Sirius inordinate pleasure.

“Sirius,” Remus murmurs into the kiss, pausing as Sirius rakes his teeth over Remus’ bottom lip. Their bodies are tight together, barely enough room for Remus to move his hand without pressing against their stomachs, but neither of them move. “Oh, yeah, _Gaia_ , you even feel good in my hand.”

Across the lake, the trio come with a joined cry, Lily’s soprano gasp with the guttural moan of Regulus’ tenor and the undertone of James’ growl. They are a symphony together and the sounds of their cries with Remus pressed so close, his breath in Sirius’ mouth, his _tongue_ in Sirius’ mouth, his hand firm around Sirius’ cock with every twist, every swipe of his thumb, sends Sirius over the edge. His head falls onto Remus’ shoulder, mouth open to press against his skin as he gasps through the waves of orgasm like the water of the lake lapping against his skin. Everything feels overheated, electric, as Remus scatters kisses over his cheek and temple. Sirius scrapes his teeth over Remus’ collarbone as the last dregs of pleasure sink way, drawing blood to the surface but not quite breaking it, Remus’ pulse flooding there under his tongue.

“Let’s go back to the house,” Sirius says, smiling as they finally catch their breath and Remus peels away from him. “Then maybe we can do all those things we talked about.”

 

Later, sprawled in the furs, panting softly, Remus trails a finger over Sirius’ sternum. Sirius watches, smiling softly through heavy-lidded eyes, Remus’ blood on his tongue and the newest bite mark still pink and livid on his throat.

“Do you sleep?” Remus asks idly, his feet tangled with Sirius’, a fur thrown roughly over their middles to ward off the chill of midnight.

“Mmm, a little, not as much as you need.”

“Do you _dream?_ ”

Sirius pauses. He’s never thought about that before. “No. I don’t think I do…”

“That’s sad.” Remus tilts his head back to look at Sirius, his green eyes wide and surprisingly lucid for the vigour of their fucking earlier. “Dreams are wonderful.”

“Are they? I have a lot of memories… they are similar, I imagine,” Sirius says, idly tracing circles with one finger over Remus’ shoulder.

“No, they’re not. Dreams are… fantastical. They’re… clearer than memories, but… fuzzy at the same time, like—” he hums softly, thinking of the right word and Sirius’ heart soars with inexplicable fondness— “everything is very bright and nothing seems important and everything is achievable.”

“Sounds lovely.” Sirius presses his mouth into Remus’ curls, still damp from the lake and perspiration. “What do you dream of?”

“Everything… and nothing. Sometimes it’s… I don’t know, finding somewhere quiet to live, where I don’t need to worry. Sometimes it’s what will happen after this, beyond this all, beyond this life, y’know. Sometimes, they _are_ like memories, and I remember things I want to forget like my parents or a girl I used to run with before Mother took her.” Remus sighs softly. Sirius wants to wrap him up and protect him from everything else in the world. Possessiveness roars, loyalty and protectiveness like an old guard dog bubbling at the back of his throat. He wants to destroy everything that ever hurt Remus. Remus breathes again though and presses a kiss to the part of Sirius’ shoulder he’s tucked against. “Sometimes it’s what things would’ve been like before Gaia. I hear all these tales from old soothsayers and I wonder how much of it is true.”

“I lived for two centuries before Gaia, dearest. I don’t dream but perhaps I can share my memories with you, hm?”

Remus’ face lights up and it’s _beautiful_ , like the sun on Sirius’ face for the first time in three centuries. “Will you?” Sirius nods, smiling widely, as if he’s able to deny Remus anything when he looks like that. “Tell me everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, darling!


	9. Chapter 9

_I’ll be fine,_ Sirius had said, peeling off from Regulus when the pair went out hunting. They had found one person willing to trade, and like a good older ‘brother’ Sirius had let Regulus have it, and insisted he carry on by himself in search of someone else, telling Regulus go back to his lovers. They had clasped arms and separated with a word to see each other back at the house as soon as possible.

Two hours later, Sirius _had_ found someone, though he was tired, grumpy and thinking of Remus waiting with the flush high on his cheeks to meet Sirius—blood-high and giddy and desperate for kisses—when he returned. Perhaps that’s why he was now stumbling back through the trees, his head spinning, vision swimming.

Fucking _bad blood_. He had been too hungry, too tired, too grumpy, to realise the error of his ways. The high had been fine first, the initial hit of blood like a sledgehammer to the chest to knock all the air from his lungs and make him grip tighter and gulp and gulp great mouthfuls of it. The human didn’t realise, Sirius was sure of it, that he was going to die imminently. Of course Sirius had brought death right to his heels, but now, with the way he was feeling, he was sure Mother might be coming for him sooner than expected too.

 _No_. Not when he’s just found something to make him spark with electricity again. Not when he’s just found Remus and he wakes with a smile and Remus’ face pressed into his shoulder and feels as if he has a purpose again. Sirius wipes away the blood trickling from his nose and sniffs, trying to find the scent of his family, of Remus, feeling utterly bewildered and lost. It’s not a sensation he’s familiar with and it’s… frightening.

Sirius has drank bad blood before, yes, several times. Especially when opium was so prevalent in the 1880’s—that gave a nice, woozy high though—or when the Hepatitis C scandal broke in 1970’s Britain and blood banks became blacklisted amongst their kind—that was _far_ less pleasant to detox—but never alone, and never so far from home. Sirius pushes through the undergrowth, blinking longer and slower. No, _no._ He just needs to get home, get to James and Lily and Regulus and they can help. To _Remus_. If he is going to die, he wants to see Remus, just this one more time.

Then, _there_. The scent of home, Lily’s hair, James’ mouth, Regulus’ skin, Remus’ blood. _Yes_ , _there_.

The ground seems to sway beneath his feet as he moves forward, panting, pushing a hand over his face to try and wipe away the cold sweat. He pauses to retch into a bush off the side of the trail, clinging to a low-lying branch to stay upright. His body needs the blood _out._ He can feel it seeping into his insides, to his mind, an acrid taste like burnt hair or ammonia in the back of his throat. He feels sluggish, pulled out of his body, out, out, out, down, down, _down_. To the darkness, to the Earth, back to Mother Nature.

 _No_. No, not yet, not yet. It has only been fifteen sunsets, fifteen sunsets of Remus’ mouth and his smile and the way he pushes at Sirius’ boundaries. That is _not_ enough time to relish in this gift from the Old Gods, not enough time to fully commit to memory the taste of his blood, the feel of his body clenching around Sirius’, the sound of his laughter.

Sirius falls against the door of the house before he’s even realised he’s there, stumbling and scrambling for the handle. The door swings open and, with a soft exhale, James catches him.

“Mother fucking _take us_ ,” James grits out, his voice swimming between Sirius’ ears as he clutches his brother and retches again. The house is alive at once, Lily’s red hair swimming into Sirius’ vision, Regulus swearing in Latin—he always was a pretentious little bastard. _Gaia_ , Sirius loves that about him—James hauling him into the room. Sirius can only hear snippets of conversation between the ringing in his ears and the vehemence of his body screaming _out, get this out of me_.

“—t’s wrong… him?” Remus. His voice sounds shorn. Is it from Sirius fucking his throat earlier in the day or something else? He doesn’t want Remus to be upset. He wants nothing bad to ever happen to him again.

“James—s’fin—” Sirius tries to push his hands away. He just wants to sleep.

“ _Hell’s roots._ Bad blood.” Lily’s voice is sharper and Sirius stops trying to track the movement of her red hair as his eyelids get heavier.

“He… human—go—find...”

Sleep.

James has set him on the furs, apparently, his cheek pressed to a timber wolf pelt Sirius distinctly remembers obtaining after a hunt with English gentry in the late 19th century. He hadn’t relished killing such a beast, near shoulder-height and far too intelligent, but that was the way the world worked then, and still does now in many ways.

Wolf. _Remus_.

In a moment of lucidity, searching for that man shrouded in furs, Sirius lifts his head and sees Regulus talking to him, his hair is still delightfully mussy but his shoulders are drawn tight.

“We’re going… find blood for him,” Regulus says with a sharp glance to Sirius. “I’ll stay close enough that if you need me, shout and I will be there. He’s…” Another glance, out to the window. “Just keep him awake, if you can.” Regulus pats Remus on the shoulder. Sirius’ protectiveness flares, he doesn’t even like the idea of his _brother_ touching this man but the snarl dies in his throat and he can’t quite push himself from the bed. “And don’t let—” Regulus’ voice fades from Sirius’ mind, he can’t concentrate.

Sleep. He’s so tired. So tired. His insides feel like lead, feel like— _Gaia_ , what was in that human’s blood, what the hell was wrong with him? Sirius retches again, feeling blood trickle from the corner of his mouth and from his nose. He tries to wipe them but his hands feel like lead. He should’ve been more careful! Mother take him, Sirius has become cocky as he gets older, inattentive in his rush to get back to Remus and now he is paying for his utter _stupidity_.

“-rius?” The furs dip next to Sirius and he feels a cool hand on his forehead. Strange. Remus is always so warm. Is Remus sick? No, Remus can’t be sick, Sirius has to protect him.

He summons a smile, trying to open his eyes. “Remus, dear heart.”

“They’ve gone—find you blood—” Remus’ voice is always so lovely. Lilting but deep and always, no matter whether he’s telling a joke or telling—begging—Sirius to fuck him harder, sparking something in Sirius’ heart, in that bit of his brain that’s all pack animal, that wants to protect.

“Mmmhmm,” Sirius draws out on a sigh, his fingers finding Remus’ arm and pulling him closer. He just wants to sleep. “Shhh, sweetling.” His head drops onto Remus’ upper arm, and even through this veil of blackness and swimming vision, Remus’ heartbeat is strong and alluring, like siren song.

He needs _blood_.

No, not Remus. He’ll take too much, won’t be able to stop. But it smells _so good_ , and Remus is _right there_ , his heart pumping away, his blood coursing through his body always so rich and deep, ichor and ambrosia.

“Don’t die—me,” Remus says, Sirius catching every other word, but the way Remus sinks closer and his fingers brush through Sirius’ hair, light as fae folk— _oh,_ so he is Oberon after all—says that he is worried for Sirius.

“I won’t, I won’t—” Sirius presses his mouth to Remus’ arm through his shirt. His shirt is on, that’s disappointing. He wants Remus naked. He wants slow, unhurried kisses and languid thrusting but his eyes won’t open and his hands won’t move. “Mmm, Remus. Y’smell s’good.”

Remus hums softly and Sirius feels him shift, sitting up maybe, but now Sirius is closer to his stomach than his neck and if he could shift his head would fall on Remus’ thigh but he can’t quite move. Remus is cool and reassuring and his skilled fingers are winding through Sirius’ hair.

“‘mus…” Sirius clears his throat, trying to shift the blood clotting at the back of his mouth, turning rancid—his body trying to purge the toxins. He needs _blood_ to replace what his body has to filter out. Where is James? Or Lily? Or Regulus? “M’li—dryad.”

“—here, Sirius.” Remus shifts again. He sounds tired. How long has it been? Some days it’s hard to find anyone to hunt at all, but tonight Sirius has no measure of time available to him. His vision is blurry and his head is swimming.

He keeps thinking of meeting Remus in the wilderness for that first time, how brazenly he had bartered, how bright his green eyes had looked. He thinks of Remus at the fire with rabbit’s blood on his fingers. He thinks of Remus smiling down at him as Sirius wakes him with his mouth around the man’s cock. The shock of brightness in Remus’ eyes when he realises just how much he enjoys Sirius’ teeth, or just how much he enjoys Sirius holding his hips tight.

 _Oh_ , he will miss it all.

“I don—where they—re.” Remus sounds worried now, and Sirius wants to brush away the little line he gets at the corner of his left eye when Remus frowns but he can’t lift his hand. Remus is _so_ alive. Oh, oh, he will miss it.

Remus’ hand sweeps the hair out of Sirius’ eyes with gentle fingers, and then, after a beat, his thumb swipes over the blood oozing from Sirius’ nose. _Take_. The scent of blood mixes with Remus’ skin and Sirius wants to have it. He turns his head to chase the taste of it and presses his mouth again Remus’ flesh. _Take, take, take!_ His survival instinct seems to surface, all at once like a snarling beast backed into a corner. His fingers close around Remus’ wrist to stop him pulling away.

“Sirius.” Remus’ voice doesn’t sound stern.

Sirius licks the trickle of blood from Remus’ fingers before his tongue wends a path over the lifelines of his palm. Remus’ pulse thunders at his wrist, in Sirius’ ears, in his brain, rattling through his chest. He needs _blood_. He’s _hungry. Gaia,_ he’s so fucking hungry.

“You need blood…” Remus says faintly, as if he’s only just realised he is, in fact, a source of blood himself. “Regulus said you need a lo— _ah!_ ”

Sirius sinks his teeth into Remus’ wrist. Too deep, too sharp. The first taste of blood is bitter with fear but Sirius gulps it down and his free hand falls to Remus’ thigh to brace and support himself. _Gaia_ , Remus tastes good. He’s never tasted more like ambrosia, like ichor, like literal lifeblood. Sirius’ fingers tighten around Remus’ wrist to stop him as he instinctively tries to pull away but Sirius won’t let him. Sirius groans and blinks long and slow, drinking hungrily. He’s so _fucking_ hungry.

“Sirius—Siriu—ah!” Remus is panting. His voice doesn’t sound as soft as it usually does when Sirius’ teeth are on him.

Sirius realises then how tight he’s holding on and how far his teeth—all of his teeth not just his canines—are sunk into Remus’ wrist. But he can’t stop. He can’t pull away, already starting to feel better. His body is beyond his control now, it needs blood to stop him dying. The ultimate survival instinct is brewing under his fingernails and at the back of his throat. Everything is still fuzzy and he can’t quite see straight beyond Remus’ lush skin and the tendons of his arm pulling softly. Is he trying to pull away? No! Sirius needs blood. He doesn’t care where it’s from, he just needs _blood_.

By the time his vision solidifies for long enough to blink and see _things_ instead of vague shapes, Remus’ eyes are fluttering. With an airy sigh his muscles goes lax into the furs and when blood stops rushing through Sirius’ ears he realises how soft and slow Remus’ pulse sounds; it’s usually so strong, thundering through them both, but now it’s so weak.

“Oh, Mother fucking take me, _hell’s roots_ —Remus,” Sirius says sharply as he pulls back and plasters his palm over the bite wound to heal it. His head is swimming and he can’t see straight, he wants to sleep for days to try and resist this sickness but Remus is pale, and when Sirius shakes his shoulder he just murmurs. “Remus!”

Hauling Remus into his lap, Sirius blinks rapidly. He needs to concentrate, he can’t sleep, he can’t, not yet. His fingers are shaking as they find the home of Remus’ pulse beneath that tempting angle of his jaw—it’s _so_ weak that Sirius can barely feel it. He won’t let Remus die, he won’t, he won’t. Not when it’s his fucking fault. Not when he should’ve been more fucking careful, he should’ve been _stronger_.

There’s only one thing he can do.

Sirius tears a gash in his own wrist with bloody teeth. He doesn’t give himself a chance to think on the idiotic nature of this plan as he presses the wound to Remus’ mouth. “Hell’s roo—come _on_ , Remus. Don’t die on me.”

Remus murmurs something and tries to pull away, but Sirius’ other hand tangles in his hair to pin him in place. He presses his wrist tight to Remus’ mouth to force him to gulp the rich blood down. He needs to drink, he needs this. He can’t die. But Sirius feels more and more woozy. _He_ needs blood too. He can’t afford much blood to give. He needs to give enough for Remus to live, enough to rush around his insides. He can’t fucking die. Sirius trawls his memories desperately for any information about turning. It’s been two centuries at least. The four of them have been together for so long, never thought about adding anyone else to their family. James turned Lily and Sirius turned Regulus but that was so long ago. How much was he meant to give? How much could he _afford_ to give?

Remus’ pulse picks up as Sirius utters a litany of curse words over and over, dredging up forgotten religions and Gods too dead to forsake. “Don’t _die_ on me Remus.” A noise outside, but it’s just an animal perhaps; Sirius’ senses are blurred at the edges. “Where in Gaia’s name are you three?”

Remus splutters and tries to pull away again, the taste of blood in his mouth no doubt acrid, his eyes flickering behind closed lids. His veins are a deep, bruised purple now. Is that meant to happen? Sirius can remember almost nothing of his own change but a strange out-of-body feeling, and Regulus’ had happened with Lily and James already with him. They had gotten through it together. Now Sirius is alone, with not enough blood for them both.

“I hope—” Sirius’ voice cracks— “I hope that’s enough…”

It’s his last thought as he slumps next to Remus, their pulses twining, barely loud enough for either of them. _It has to be enough_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for reading 🖤


	10. Chapter 10

“Sirius—hell’s fucking roots— _Sirius!_ ”

Sirius comes awake slowly. Painfully. With blood in his mouth and a strange heavy-floating sensation coursing through his limbs. He’s foggy at first, his vision swimming, his head filled with cotton wool or the half-rotten mulch of autumn—back when seasons existed. Then it comes flooding back and Sirius inhales sharply, trying to sit up but his limbs don’t want to work.

Regulus holds Sirius still, his black eyes cool and piercing. “What in all of Gaia’s mercy happened?”

Sirius shakes his head, looking around for Remus but everything feels heavy. Oh. Oh, _Gaia,_ what had he done? “Wha—is he okay? _Is he okay?_ ”

Holding him by the shoulders, Regulus forces Sirius to look at him no matter how much his eyes want to roll with residual pain, nausea and hunger. “You need to drink first.” He rolls his shirtsleeve up to offer Sirius his wrist. “We couldn’t find anyone to come back, but I found someone near an old trail. Here, just—”

Before he can finish the sentence Sirius falls on him, ravenous. He sinks his teeth in for just a second before his mind fills with the memory of Remus’ wrist beneath his mouth. How long had they been out? Was Remus okay? He pulls away from the wound. “Is he okay?”

“ _Gaia weeping_ , Sirius. Just drink first, will you?” Regulus’ fingers tangle through the hair behind Sirius’ ear and support him, not allowing him to pull back from the blood flowing from Regulus’ wrist. Regulus had been a descendant of his when he was human, only fifty or so years after his _disappearance_ , close enough for it to still be a folk legend in the village, and he had fit in the trio of James, Lily and Sirius _so well_. James and Lily had fallen for him of course, perhaps in a similar way they had fallen for Sirius at first, so similar physically. But Sirius loves the trio like family. Their closeness comes from a pack mentality, not any kind of romantic love. James, Lily and Regulus were as close to one being as any three could get, it was almost scary at times. It was odd, then, to see just Regulus sitting next to him when he awoke.

Sirius gasps when he pulls back the second time, breathless from his hunger. Nausea rises in his throat at the rush of such potent blood and he retches again, his body caught somewhere between ravenous and rejecting. Sirius breathes heavily, clenching his eyes shut, and retches again. Regulus holds on tight to his shoulder and leaves the bite at his wrist open. He offers it wordlessly towards Sirius again, but they are so entwined he might as well hear the words— _you need more, brother_. Sirius inhales sharply and drinks again. After his fill, closing his eyes to try and concentrate on not retching again, Regulus touches the bite with his thumb and it knits together under his magic. Regulus looks a little pale, but Sirius knows he can take it; he has James and Lily to call on, and a stronger constitution than Remus.

_Remus_.

“Regulus, merciful Gaia, is he okay? _Is he alive?”_ Sirius’ pushes out his senses to search for the man but they are all ragged and blurred at the edges, shorn off like poorly manicured plants; he can’t quite reach.

Regulus sighs. “He is alive—” he glances away for a moment— “but I won’t lie to you, it looks bad.”

Sirius sinks into the furs and closes his eyes. “What can I do? Does he need—what does he need? Are James and Lily with him? Where _is_ he?”

“Next door,” Regulus says, his head tipping towards the other room. His hand stays tight on Sirius’ shoulder to keep him on the furs. Usually, Sirius is stronger than his brother by miles, but in his weakened state he can barely stay sat upright under the weight of Regulus’ hand. “You need more rest, Sirius.”

“Take me to him, then. I’ll rest next to him, with him.”

“What _happened_?”

“I—I don’t know… He was…” Sirius sighs and presses his mouth into a thin line. “I lost control. I shouldn’t have bitten him, but I did. I was so hungry I couldn’t _think_ , and his blood… And then, _Mother_ , I realised—I realised what I’d done.” Sirius cracks one eye open and tilts his head to stare at Regulus. He pushes away the high as vigorously as he can. He doesn’t want it, he doesn’t deserve it. Vampiric blood is powerful, but he doesn’t want it. When he speaks again it’s a low murmur, vulnerable almost. “I barely had enough blood for one of us, never mind both… How bad is he?”

Regulus doesn’t answer for long enough that Sirius thinks he won’t at all. He looks out of the window and Sirius watches his eyes flicker to follow a bird or some scurrying creature in the undergrowth.

“Reg… How bad is it?”

“I can’t say, not yet.” He huffs a sigh and Sirius sinks further into the furs.

“I need to see him.”

“No, you need to rest.” Lily’s voice comes from the doorway. She looks formidable on the best of days, all legs and a fiery mass of hair, but now she is standing between Sirius and the thing that makes him feel alive.

Sirius’ top lip curls back into a sneer at the idea of someone trying to stay between him and Remus. Logically, he understands that he probably shouldn’t be around the other man after accidentally draining his blood and resorting into turning him into something distinctly not human when it is Remus’ humanity that he adores. “Don’t stand in my way, Lily.”

Lily laughs. “You can barely stand, my star—” she uses her old nickname for him but it sits ill-fitting on Sirius’ shoulders in this moment and he doesn’t like it— “don’t make threats.”

Sirius’ soul pushes at the confines of the cage in the pit of his stomach. He wants Remus. He wants to see him alive. He wants this to be a jest and for Remus to appear at the doorway with his crooked little smile and broad shoulders. His voice cracks the moment he speaks and Sirius feels for the first time as if he’s dredging the words up from the depths of his heart. “Please, I need to see him, Lily.”

Lily and Regulus exchange a quick glance. Sirius has never been more aware of the trio being so interconnected than now. He wants to scream.

After a beat, Lily speaks. “If you’ll rest with him, fine.”

Regulus rises from the furs next to Sirius and, clearing his throat, offers a hand to him. “Come on.”

Sirius stands with far more difficulty than he’s used to, leaning heavily on Regulus’ offered hand. The trip to the next room tires him so much his eyes are heavy by the time they reach the threshold and he leans on the doorframe. James is at the pile of furs, leaning over. Sirius knows that Remus is lying there beneath the wolf pelts. His wolf. Sirius’ protectiveness flares, but he can’t do anything about it as Regulus guides him across the room, Lily on their heels.

“James… is he?” Sirius’ voice is rough at the thought of how he might finish that sentence. When James doesn’t answer immediately, Sirius sinks onto the furs next to Remus.

He’s _cold_.

But he’s breathing. Deathly pale, veins stained a deep purple, lips tinged blue, but he’s _breathing_. He’s so cold, so much colder than Sirius likes to think of Remus. He’s usually so warm, pressed against him, warm with blood rushing through him. His pulse is faint too. Soon, if this all goes well, his pulse will stop entirely. The idea of that makes Sirius want to cry and he has to turn his face into the furs slightly. This is all his fault. He _loves_ Remus’ humanity, and in one fell swoop he has taken that away. Will Remus be the same when— _if_ —he wakes up? Sirius has managed to destroy the thing that has given him life and light for the last— _Gaia_ , it’s only been fifteen days.

“We just have to wait… I don’t think giving him any more blood will help right now…” Lily rubs a hand over her face. She seems tired, but her cheeks are flushed. She leans into Regulus and he presses a kiss to her temple.

“How long was—how long has it been?”

“You were out for a day and a half,” James sighs, sitting back on his heels.

Instinctively Sirius rolls onto his side and throws an arm over Remus’ stomach to feel it rise and fall with the little breath winnowing in and out of his lungs. It’s comforting. At least that will stay when he turns— _if_ he turns—but so many things will go. _Oh_ , his eyes. Those green eyes won’t be green anymore. His kisses won’t be the same, his fine, white teeth won’t be the same. His _mind_ won’t be the same. Sirius has taken away every bit of him.

Sirius’ eyes flicker shut, his body still trying to detox the sickness of whatever was in that human’s blood. He just wants to sleep and rest. Remus’ chest gently rising and falling is like a lullaby to him, waves lapping at the shore of his soul. Sirius might love being a vampire now, but he still remembers the fear and terror of first being turned; his body understanding but his brain refusing to do so, why he wanted _blood_ and not food, why his skin crawled in the sun, why he heard better than he did before, smelt better, felt an inexplicable pull towards both Minerva and James, like family, but stronger. He hopes he can be there to guide Remus through it. He hopes Remus won’t hate him too much for it.

Sirius sleeps fitfully, wondering when the acrid, burning taste of bad blood will finally be gone from his mouth.

When he stirs next, it’s to James sitting next to him, brushing the hair from his eyes.

“How is he?” Sirius croaks, his vision swimming for a moment before he realises that the weight on his right side is, in fact, Remus. He’s so used to the man being warm, that when there isn’t a temperature difference, it doesn’t quite register with him. Sirius turns his head so sharply that he feels lightheaded and wavers beneath James’ secure hand on his shoulder.

“He’s… stable, I think.”

Sirius can’t even hear Remus’ pulse unless he concentrates and really listens. Remus is so pallid, but his veins are sinking back into pale blue now, so perhaps that’s a good sign? Sirius reaches over to feel the rise and fall of Remus’ breath. Even with his hand over Remus’ heart, his pulse is ghostly.

Sirius sighs. “I didn’t mean to. I—My survival instinct just… kicked in.”

“I know,” James says, his hand on Sirius’ shoulder, thumb stroking over his collarbone in a gesture reminiscent of their shared youth so long ago. “He’s strong, though. You know that. I wonder if the worst has passed by now.”

Sirius’ eyes are fixed on Remus’, closed beneath translucent lids. Usually, when he dreams— _oh_. Sirius has taken those too. Remus’ dreams. The way his face would light up talking about them, telling him what he had dreamed the previous night. Now he wouldn’t have that either. No more slow nights staring into green eyes and listening to nonsensical dreams, listening to a heartbeat. Sirius clenches his eyes shut. He will not cry.

After a moment, James touches the high point of Sirius’ cheek and down the damp tendrils of hair clinging to his neck. “You need to drink, love.” He holds his hand out to help Sirius sit up a little more. James smiles reassuringly and holds his arm out to Sirius. His blood smells wonderful. It smells like home. Like an old home, like childhood homes, like memories of running around in the streets barefoot, of helping pick crops in the fields.

“Are you three hunting enough? Drinking enough?” Sirius bites his own bottom lip. He doesn’t want to take anything from the trio, but the hunger is roaring again, behind his teeth, at the back of his throat, itching under his fingernails.

James rolls his eyes. “ _Hell’s roots_ , Sirius. You are in no position to try and usurp me as mother-hen. Drink.”

Sirius feels the push of compulsion, the slight magic behind James’ words of their brotherly affection, and gladly goes with it. Maybe it’s something to do with how much time they have spent together, or their shared sire in Minerva, but James’ blood seems like a cure for all of his ails. Sirius feels brighter by the time he pulls away and James casually brushes his fingers over the wound to close it a moment later.

“Has he… stirred?” Sirius says as soon as he’s wiped his mouth. He’s high as a kite, sailing, but he doesn’t want it. He wants to stay grounded and next to Remus. “At all?” He looks back to Remus, watching his face for the signs of life he usually saw there. His eyebrows didn’t quirk in answer to a question, his jaw wasn’t clenching against crying out whilst Sirius relentlessly teases him, his eyes weren’t going glassy and gorgeous when Sirius sinks his teeth into that divine flesh.

“Not quite. Not yet. But I think—” James sighs and scrubs a hand through his hair. Sirius isn’t looking in his direction and yet he knows from the way James’ breath pulls when he does that signature gesture— “I think if he were to die, Mother would’ve come for him by now.”

“Yeah.” That shouldn’t be a comfort, but it is. Sirius stretches out next to Remus, his hand automatically settling on Remus’ diaphragm to confirm he is actually still breathing. That’s not a comfort either. He sighs softly.

He wants to apologise. Sirius hasn’t apologised for his nature for centuries and yet he wants to apologise for the very thing that makes him Sirius. His survival instinct has released he, James, Regulus and Lily from many binds over the years, and yet he wants to forsake it for what it has done to Remus.

Sirius doesn’t sleep again. He props himself against the wall and piles furs over Remus’ cooling body to try and persuade himself that this isn’t happening. He wracks his brain to try and remember how long the others were out cold for their turning and comes up with nothing but that strange out-of-body feeling again. He traces the veins on Remus’ arm, remembering the strength of his pulse.

Sunsets pass. Sirius doesn’t remember to count how many.

When Remus stirs slowly, his eyelids flickering, his fingers twitching, Sirius stays silent. He watches, wary, as Remus stretches his legs and licks his lips. His first few breaths are raspy and uneven, but after a few, they level out. His scent has changed too, Sirius realises, headier now, something more like pack and home, even more tempting, in a different way. _Take_ , the hunger insists, heedless of it all. It wants to drink and mark. Remus won’t scar now, either. Not as a vampire. The shapes of Sirius’ mouth will stay on his skin from before his turning, but they won’t be able to form new ones any more.

Sirius can tell the exact moment Remus pushes at his new senses and realises Sirius is sat next to him, legs under the furs, bare-chested and heedless of the midnight cold. His body tightens, predator’s instinct there right under the skin, winding through flesh and muscle. He’ll carry himself differently, walk differently, kiss differently, _fuck differently_. Slowly, slowly, Remus turns and tips his chin up to look at Sirius. His eyes are black. Gone are the deep, misty green pools, replaced by the endless black of their immortal night sky. _Oh_ , but it’s beautiful. Sirius feels the breath hitch in his throat at the whole universe of constellations in Remus’ eyes.

“Hi,” he breathes, staring at Remus, wondering whether the night sky is about to come crashing down around him.

When Remus speaks his voice is croaky and hoarse from disuse. His teeth are bloody. “Hi.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you to Jencala for the beautiful beta on this fic, and to you, for reading and being here.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're nearly at the end! thank you to Jencala for the wonderful beta and to you for being here with me! 🖤

Sirius doesn’t know what to say.

Usually he finds it easy to hold conversation—perhaps not as easy as James, he is very disarming—and with Remus doubly so, but now, he has no clue what to say. He wants to apologise, but he’s not sure if he’s ever said the word _sorry_ out loud before. He clears his throat and looks out the window as Remus sits up and sets his back against the wall behind them.

“I—” Remus starts, his head tipping back. Sirius finds it unfathomable that he can’t hear Remus’ pulse from this close. But it doesn’t exist any more, does it? It’s gone. As dead as his humanity. “I’m… like you, aren’t I?”

Sirius shuts his eyes. He tries to tell himself _at least Remus isn’t dead_ , but at this point he wonders whether it would’ve been better if he hadn’t survived. Sirius isn’t stupid. Remus might like Sirius’ teeth on him in the throes of passion or be excited by the idea of Sirius getting high from his blood, but he knows that doesn’t mean Remus wants to be a vampire. His teeth. His eyes. His dreams.

“A vampire?” Sirius asks to the ceiling. Remus flinches next to him. “Yes.”

Remus sighs. It sounds weary and painful and Sirius finally looks at him. He’s _breathtaking_. Even sat up like this, still shrouded in furs, the pull from this creature next to him is electric. Sirius had been utterly besotted before with Remus as a human, smiling wryly and offering his throat in submission, but now? Sirius can’t think straight for how stunning he is, how much he wants to wrap Remus up and protect him from the world, but at the same time fuck him through the wall.

Sirius shifts. The only vampires he has been around since Gaia are James, Lily and Regulus. The pull from this vampire, somehow the same as the human who used to inhabit his skin, but somehow so entirely different, is phenomenal. He can’t look away, and Remus is staring at him, curious, angry, upset.

“It’s—I know it’s… different—” Sirius tries, but Remus snorts at that— “But it’s not awful. It’s scary at first, I know, I remember. But… I—I didn’t want you to die.”

Remus looks at him then, just tilts his head slightly to look at him properly. His eyes are riveting and Sirius feels the hunger spike. _Take, take, take!_ _Take everything, take it all, take his blood, take his body, like you’ve taken his life, take it all, I want it_ all _._ _He’s yours, isn’t he?_

“I didn’t want this.” Remus’ voice comes out as a shorn little whisper and Sirius’ heart—he didn’t know he still had one—breaks. No doubt Remus is rifling through a mental catalogue of every difference between the two of them that they have spoken of in the past two weeks. Sirius can tell when he comes across a difference that’s particularly heartbreaking, can see it in his face, the way his mouth twitches downwards, ever downwards. Sirius has taken his smile too.

Sirius can’t look away now, not from the way they are twinned together. “I’m sorry.” He’s not said the word out loud in the past three centuries he’s sure. It doesn’t come easily either, lodges in his throat on the way out and makes it sound like his voice is cracking and Sirius cringes because he never sounds unsure; he’s always so put together.

Remus nods. He’s staring back too, his newly black eyes flickering over Sirius’ face; his eyes, down the sharp shadow of his cheekbone, over the aristocratic slope of his nose, over the fullness of his bottom lip, the shadow beneath it; the line of his jaw, the blue of the vein just beneath the bone, where rich blood flows.

The air shifts between them.

Remus smells different, smells like home but temptation all at once. Vampiric blood is stronger than its human counterpart, gives a stronger high, especially when it’s a mutual exchange, and that thought lingers in Sirius’ brain no matter how hard he pushes it away; they need to talk properly. Sirius doesn’t know how long they sit there, staring at each other. He wonders if it’s a dominance thing, but he doesn’t feel dominance scratching at the nape of his neck like it does with anything else. It doesn’t _feel_ like they are fighting. It feels, strangely, as if they are winding around each other, gently prodding at each other’s boundaries without words, without movement, with just the unyielding black gaze that adorns them both now like a crown of thorns.

“Would I be dead now, if you hadn’t… turned me?” Remus asks, one eyebrow raising. He looks dangerous and Sirius shivers at it. He can’t conflate Remus, his little dryad, his Oberon with his fae-light fingers, with this creature in front of him, sharp angles and dark eyes.

Sirius nods. “Yes. I took too much from you.” He’d been worried about that all along. He knew he couldn’t control it.

“I let you,” Remus retorts on the heels of Sirius’ self-depreciation.

“Pardon?”

“I let you. I came over to you when you were lying there. I practically _gave_ you my wrist. I didn’t even _try_ to pull away until it started to hurt. I let you.” Remus doesn’t look away from Sirius’ face. Sirius is hesitant to name the expression on Remus’ face as _acceptance_ , but he tentatively props the word up in his mind. Perhaps it is.

“I should’ve controlled myself better. I’ve drank bad blood before.”

“I am—” Remus winces— “ _was_ human, Sirius. I was the perfect cure for whatever in Gaia’s name was in your blood.”

“I should’ve controlled it better,” Sirius insists, still not looking away from Remus’ face. “I took away your humanity Remus. I adored that about you, and now it’s gone.”

“So you only wanted me for my blood?” Remus asks, his expression turning stony and closed off.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Sirius shoots back, lifting a hand to rake through his hair. Remus tracks the movement of his hand and sits a little straighter. “I’m saying you’re kind and smart and very witty. I like the green of your eyes and the way your pulse picks up around me and your straight teeth and—” Sirius huffs— “your dreams. I took your dreams, Remus. You loved them.”

Remus cocks his head, as if he’s surprised by Sirius’ outpouring. “I didn’t…”

“Not just your blood, Remus. Never just your blood,” Sirius says softly, tipping his chin up to try and go some way towards vulnerability.

“Sirius… I—” Remus lets out a long, slow breath. His black eyes flicker over Sirius’ face and settle on his mouth. “Kiss me.”

Sirius doesn’t need to be told twice. He pitches forward and closes the gap between them and kisses Remus soundly on the lips. Sirius licks into his mouth, taking and offering at the same time. Remus’ teeth are bloody and no longer wonderfully straight but his canines are sharp and when Sirius coils his tongue into Remus’ mouth he catches it on the left one and draws blood.

Remus growls and Sirius snarls and their kiss turns even bloodier when Sirius bites Remus’ bottom lip. His blood tastes otherworldly. Sirius might’ve thought he tasted fantastic as a human, but his vampiric blood is so potent all Sirius can do is press closer. Remus gasps into the kiss and Sirius knows he is feeling the high too from the way his hands tighten on Sirius’ biceps and his hips cant upwards.

“ _Gaia_ , Sirius— _ah!_ ” Remus hisses as Sirius presses his shoulders back into the wall and climbs into his lap. Every molecule in their body—one body now, one entwined body that feels as if it’s been pulled apart and their only purpose is to meld back together—shudders for their release.

“Yes, yes Remus, _yes_.” Sirius is higher than he has ever been just from that slip of blood from Remus’ lip and he goes to scramble Remus out of his clothes and push the furs aside. Remus lifts his hips with every grind of Sirius’ own and their twinned moans sound like all the symphonies and all the glorious sounds in the world. Sirius rips the shirt from Remus’ shoulders and pushes the tatters away. Remus scrapes his nails down Sirius’ thighs and back up again to the waistband of his trousers to wrench them open.

Remus breaks the kiss on a gasp as Sirius palms over the hard line of his cock beneath his trousers. “I want— _Gaia_ , Sirius, I want you.”

“You feel it? You taste it, don’t you? You’re hungry,” Sirius whispers as he mouths over Remus’ jawline and deftly undoes his trousers to push them away. His bared flesh feels like a hot iron to Sirius’ fingers and when he lifts his hips for Sirius to divest him of the garment, his cock presses to Sirius’ thigh and he snarls with the fire of it. “ _Taaaaake_ ,” Sirius breathes before he slides his tongue over the line of Remus’ jaw and the blood roars beneath Remus’ skin.

“Oh, _hell’s roots_ , Sirius. Yes, how, _how—_ what do I do?”

Sirius growls and leans to the side to snatch the vial of oil from the floor beside the furs. He wants their joining to be more than blood now, with this strange lacing together of their souls. He wants to have all of Remus, he wants Remus to have all of him. Remus doesn’t want him to move and clenches a hand tight in his hair but Sirius is stronger and overpowers him to leave Remus no choice with a sharp snarl of _stay_. When he settles back in Remus’ lap their kisses are ravenously hungry and Remus’ hands skitter all over Sirius’ bare torso to try and drink him in.

Remus bites on Sirius’ bottom lip as they lose the rest of their clothes and the blood pools between them. Gaia, it’s lurid and bright and rich like fecund soil, nourished to a deep red with the sacrifices of so many years. Sirius grasps for the oil and slicks Remus’ fingers before he even realises what he’s doing, kneeling up to give Remus access to stroke between his legs and ease a finger into him. Remus’ eyes—they’re so black and deep—are wide as he strokes into Sirius’ body and crooks his finger to find the place that makes Sirius snarl and moan. They’ve done this a few times before, Remus’ fingers in Sirius whilst Sirius is fucking him into oblivion, but this feels different. It _is_ different.

Sirius’ tongue swipes at a trickle of blood on Remus’ chin as he shifts and impatiently pulls Remus’ fingers away. Perhaps they should’ve drawn it out more, Sirius thinks in a moment of worry, taken their time, explored this new dynamic between them, but Sirius can smell the hunger between them and he knows Remus can too even if he doesn’t know what the scent is yet. Sirius nuzzles down Remus’ jaw as Remus pants softly, his hips shifting restlessly. _Take, take, take_ , the hunger demands. Of both of them.

Then Sirius is guiding Remus’ cock into him and Remus moans and it feels like the earth splits open to swallow them whole. Sirius rises onto his knees and sinks back down, his hands tight on Remus’ shoulders to keep the other man pinned and allow him to _take_. Remus might be the one with his cock in Sirius’ arse, but Sirius is the one taking, the one in control, the one to drag Remus bodily into this new world, whether he likes it or not.

“ _Gaia_ , Sirius. Oh _Gaia_ —please, _c’mon_ ,” Remus ushers out, sounding more animal than human now, his own teeth sinking into his bottom lip as his hands raze across Sirius’ arms, down his back, down his arse to dig into his thighs. His fingers leave bruises, heedless of his newfound strength for the way his hips snap up to meet Sirius’ with every fuck of his downwards.

The furs spill out around them with the vigour of their fucking, Remus’ feet scrambling for flat purchase to thrust upwards as they sprawl out together and Sirius’ fingernails scrape over Remus’ shoulders in response to every movement against his prostate.

“Yeah— _hell_ —Remus.” Sirius clutches at Remus’ hair and draws him close, pressing their lips together in a hungry kiss before stretching up to press Remus’ face into his neck. “ _Bite me._ ” Sirius has been thinking about this since Remus arrived, since he saw those fine, white teeth in bloody rabbit meat and dismissed it as a passing fancy, but now it is here and Remus needs no further encouragement.

Remus’ teeth are sharp as they scrape experimentally over the vein of Sirius’ neck and Sirius spreads his knees wider to sink further onto Remus’ cock and gasp into his hair. Remus licks his lips and his tongue coils across Sirius’ skin. “What do I—”

“Just _bite_ ,” Sirius snarls, torn apart by need, by Remus’ breath on his neck and the way the blood is pooling under the skin in anticipation. “You’ll know, _it_ knows, just bi— _ah!”_

Pain and pleasure explode through Sirius’ body in equal measure, unfettered by any restraints, as Remus’ teeth sink into his flesh and the smell of blood fills the air. Sirius comes in rivulets over Remus’ chest, his fingers white-knuckled and unforgivably tight in Remus’ hair to hold him there as his orgasm shatters through him like a pane of glass. His head swims with pleasure, the white-hot pain of the bite, the smell of blood, Remus’ cock unforgiving against his prostate.

Remus moans—the first taste is always the best, like you have been starving for years and this is the only thing to sate the deplorable, inescapable hunger, because it is, isn’t it?—and his hips shudder upwards once, twice more before Sirius feels the telltale tightness in Remus’ stomach against his and his mouth slips from the bite wound.

“Sirius— _Gaia_ , please—”

“Yeah,” breathes Sirius on an out-breath, flying high from orgasm, one hand coming up to seal the wound on his own neck before he ducks closer to Remus’ skin and mouths the place where Remus’ pulse had been. He’s not sure if he misses it for the way he and Remus are entwined now. Remus’ teeth feel a fair trade for his pulse. “Yeah, come on, sweetling, fuck me, come for me.”

Sirius’ teeth sink into Remus’ skin at the high point of a deliciously sharp thrust and Remus cries out at the sudden combined pleasure. Sirius’ other hand strokes over Remus’ shoulder, braced there to push them together with every lift of his hips. Remus’ blood tastes _holy_. Gaia, Sirius has known from the beginning that Remus felt like salvation, but he never imagined it to be like this.

Remus’ hands skitter across Sirius’ body as they sink, slowly, down from the euphoria of blood and sex. They are pressed together, bound together in blood and come and the novelty of finding something—some _one_ —that makes life feel worth living when it has been so long and the world is _so_ cruel. Sirius lifts a hand to touch his finger to the bite and savours the dregs of Remus’ blood on his lips as Remus’ cock slips out of him and Remus hisses softly.

Sirius watches as Remus sits back, gasping for breath, limbs still somewhere between lead-heavy and bright-light, and rubs a hand over his mouth. He stares at the blood that comes away on his hand for the longest time.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I woke up with a start this morning, realising I didn't post this last night 😂 So here it is, apologies for the lateness.

“What am I meant to _do_ with my life though now?” Remus asks, sitting heavily on the edge of the furs where Lily is curled up, her eyes bright, her skin pale. Regulus and James are out hunting. Sirius hasn’t wanted to leave Remus’ side in the five days since his turning and as hungry as he might be, Remus is more important.

“Whatever you like, love,” Lily says, sitting forward to touch Remus on the shoulder. Sirius swallows a snarl at the idea of her touching him. “You have all the time in the world now.”

Remus’ brow furrows and he glances up at Sirius. Sirius stays by the window. He’s not sure what to do with this. He doesn’t know how to deal with the guilt lingering in his own stomach and comfort Remus at the same time. He could say that being turned was great—it was—but that isn’t what Remus needs to hear right now. “I don’t—that’s a strange concept.”

“You have everything you might ever want now, Remus,” Lily tries again. She too doesn’t understand Remus’ worries. They have been so long removed from humanity that it is hard to inhabit its shoes again. Lily knows of her own satiated needs— _Gaia_ , are they satiated—but she doesn’t remember pulses or dreaming. Just like Sirius doesn’t. “Why wouldn’t you want to be the top of the food chain…” Lily murmurs. She’s good at reassuring Sirius, James and Regulus, but none of them know what to say to Remus.

“I—” Remus looks up at Sirius again and at last Sirius crosses the room to sink to his knees before him. He sees the confusion in Remus’ eyes. As far as Remus is concerned he’s lost everything he knows to be his. In his skin instead is a monster who drinks blood and likes to tear things with his teeth. Sirius reaches up and takes Remus’ hands. He likes both of them. He wants them both, Remus’ smile and his dreams, but his teeth and his blood too.

“Whatever you decide, dear heart, I’ll help.” Sirius lifts Remus’ hands and presses a kiss to his knuckles. Their eye contact still sears when it’s black on black, when it’s nothing but them and their togetherness.

“We’ll all help, love,” Lily agrees, her tone soft and placating. “Whatever you need.”

Remus nods and as Sirius coils his tongue over his knuckles the tension shudders from his shoulders. “Okay.” He leans down and presses his forehead against Sirius’. “I don’t know if this is a gift or not Sirius. I want it to be, I do, but I don’t know if it is.”

“It might not feel like it now—” Sirius sees Lily slip from the furs behind them to give them privacy. Perhaps she can smell James and Regulus on the edges of her senses, returning from the hunt blood-flushed and lively— “but it means you and I can do what we please.”

Remus sighs softly and presses his mouth to Sirius’ hair, his breath is warm. Not as warm as it once was, just like his fingers are cold now, but he is still _Remus_. “I don’t know what that means either, Sirius.”

“It means just as I say.” Sirius nips at Remus’ knuckles, then kisses down to his wrist. “We can do whatever we wish. There is nothing stopping you now. If we want to explore, we may, if we want to stay here and while away the days in idle, hedonistic ecstasy, we may. Or—” Sirius swallows, this is his least favourite option— “if you wish, I can teach you what you need to know in the most immediate of terms, and then, you can go your own way.”

If Lily were still in the room, Sirius knows just what she would say. _When you brought him here, you said you would not give him a choice to stay. You said he was yours and you were keeping him._ She would be smiling wryly, black eyes filled with mirth. _But here you are giving him a chance to leave? How noble of you, my star._ Lily would be right too, Sirius had wanted to force Remus to stay. And now he is letting him go, if he wants.

Remus’ fingers twist to grip onto Sirius’ own wrist. Sirius is still shocked by the new speed of Remus’ movements, the surety of his footfalls even now as a relative newborn, still coming to terms with his new body. Remus looks determined as his brow furrows and his fingers dig into Sirius’ wrist. “I want to stay with you.”

Sirius leans forward and kisses Remus on the mouth, licking his tongue in practised skill over the seam of his lips to beg— _demand_ —entrance. When he has it, oh, Remus always gives it, his tongue presses gently at the caverns of Remus’ mouth, seeking out the blood they had exchanged earlier, the iron-tang of his own insides. When he pulls back Remus’ eyes are dark in a way that is still thrilling and new. “You mean that?”

“Yes,” Remus breathes, his tongue darting out to wet his own bottom lip and catching Sirius’ too.

“ _Thank Mother_ ,” Sirius hisses, realising a moment later how vulnerable that phrase might make him sound, how much he wants Remus to stay, how relieved he is that Remus does not want to leave, that he wants to stay with Sirius. The thrust of emotions hits Sirius hard and he pitches back to try and put some semblance of distance between them but Remus holds fast to his wrists and doesn’t let him.

Remus smiles and leans in to kiss Sirius again and his mouth tastes of promises and the jungle and blood. Only a moment later he tips back, his eyes flickering to the doorway. “Regulus and James are back.”

Sirius smiles indulgently. He had felt the pair pressing gently at his senses a while earlier, already tuned and honed for his family, but hadn’t mentioned it. He wanted to see how Remus would fair with these new tools at his disposal. “Yes, sweetling. Well done.” He kisses Remus and pulls him up to standing. “And Lily is with them too. Can you tell which one she’s drinking from, from here?”

Sirius can tell immediately, the smell of blood snaps into the air like gunfire and it’s Regulus’, sweet and warm. James will have had enough for Sirius to take some, if he’s lucky.

Remus concentrates and tilts his head up to scent the air. The look on his face is so endearing Sirius winds an arm around his waist and presses kisses along his jaw whilst he thinks. “Mmm, Regulus, I think?”

“Mhmm, well done.” Sirius rewards him with a scrape of his teeth over Remus’ jaw and a soft kiss to soothe the sting. The blood in the air is roiling the hunger inside of him, telling him to _take_ , but neither he or Remus have drank enough recently. Sirius steps back and takes his hand to pull them out into the clearing. “Let’s go and greet them, shall we?”

Regulus and James look just as pleasantly flushed as Sirius expected and Lily is wound onto James’ arm, holding onto him for the rush of euphoria that has surrounded her. The look of pure satisfaction on her face only makes Sirius even more hungry. They exchange greetings as the trio get closer, all boneless and sated with their high, doubtless ready to go and do something filthy and carnal somewhere only half-private. Sirius is eager to follow in their footsteps.

He squeezes Remus’ hand and dips to speak close to his ear. “Do you want to? Or shall you take it from me?” There’s something entirely enthralling about the idea of Remus’ blood supply being beholden to Sirius. The idea that Remus only wants to drink from him, only wants to share the high with _him_ , sets Sirius’ insides aflame in a way he hadn’t dared contemplate on until now. As romantic as the idea seems, though, it’s unsustainable in the long run, Remus needs to be capable of taking blood wherever he can get it.

“I think, perhaps,” Remus says, gripping onto Sirius’ hand. “I’d like if you showed me how to… hunt.”

“Oh—” Sirius is shocked for the slightest of moments, just enough for it to trickle across his features, but then he smiles, slow and satisfied. “Of course, dearest. We can do that.”

Already Sirius’ heart is beating at the idea of Remus taking blood from a human. Overpowering them with just a look or a touch or a sly little smile. Remus had been magnetic as a human, drawing Sirius in with his petulance and particular brand of submission, but now he has a streak of something devilish in him and the opportunity to see that in action is thrilling.

Sirius gives James a little smile as they cross the clearing. Only yesterday Sirius was voicing his worries to James on how Remus might not take to their ways, but at every opportunity Remus has delightfully proved him wrong. At the edge of the clearing the jungle looms and Remus picks a path back towards the nearest human settlement.

After a few minutes, he pauses on the path. Sirius presses up against his back and rests his chin on Remus’ shoulder. “What seems to be the problem, sweetling?”

Remus cocks his head to subconsciously bare his neck to Sirius’ mouth if he pleases. It’s ingrained in him now, beautifully. “I don’t… know what I’m looking for.”

Sirius shuts his eyes and lets his senses roll forward. He can smell blood a half mile west, to the human settlement, and perhaps something closer south-west. “You know what it smells like. Just close your eyes and look for it. Reach out for it, the smell of iron, rust, life… you know already, the hunger knows.”

Remus nods and sinks back into Sirius’ body for a moment, resting against him as if it’s too much at once to reach with his senses and stay in control of his body. The motion thunders through Sirius, who presses a kiss to the juncture of his neck and shoulder before gently righting him as Remus says, “This way.”

“Good, so good, Remus,” Sirius affirms, swelling with pride and gifting Remus a nip of his teeth to the skin of his shoulder. “Well done. Lead the way.”

Remus strides forward with a small glance over his shoulder at Sirius. Sirius grins back, reminded of their journey back to the house on that day only a few weeks ago, the way Remus melds with the wilderness and looks so at home with it, born into it, raised by it. That same easiness has carried over to this new life and Remus near saunters through the trees in search of his quarry.

At a fork in the road Remus pauses and reaches out again, picking the fork to the left after a moment. He takes a few steps forward then looks back at Sirius, seeking confirmation. He’s beginning to trust himself though, trust the part of him that just knows what to do.

Sirius smiles indulgently, proudly, hotly, and nods. “Yes, dear one. Well done.”

Sirius stays far enough back to let Remus lead, and to admire his physique in the dim, greenish light. The change has made him even leaner, the lightly muscled limbs that came from a hard life in the wilderness now ooze power and sensuality and a kind of _come hither_ that Sirius somehow finds even more endearing than his coy humanity. Perhaps it’s something about Sirius’ own intervention, his ability to mould and shape Remus into something new, but something still so familiar.

A clearing emerges from within the trees and Sirius already knows they will find a couple there, and by the smell of it, the remains of a campfire. They both smell healthy enough. At the edge, Sirius pulls Remus to a stop with a gentle hand on his arm. “Watch what I do first. Then you can follow with the other, okay? You’ll know what to do, sweetling.”

Remus hums and twists around to kiss him briefly. Remus’ eyes are a little cloudy, as if he’s thinking of something unsavoury. “I suppose,” he murmurs petulantly.

Sirius smiles. “I won’t enjoy it near as much as I enjoy you, dear heart,” He says, willing to bet on the source of Remus’ unhappiness. When Remus smiles softly, caught, Sirius grins back and eases past him to the couple.

“Hello…” Sirius smiles his magnetic, charming-sharp smile. It’s easier with James in tow, he’s so disarming, but Sirius is too, in his own way. The conversation is easy enough, to barter with them, to light their campfire with the flick of his lighter in exchange for a few mouthfuls. Sometimes, if they are hungry enough, Sirius and James will accost humans and the only side of the bargain is their lives, able to go free after meeting with Mother’s true, beloved children. But with Remus, no, he wants to show him how to do it properly.

Sirius takes the taller of the women, lithe and blonde, and pushes her sleeve up to expose the honey of her wrist. His fingers weave a hypnotic pattern on her skin, a pattern that comes in his own blood, comes as second nature, as it will to Remus when he learns to lean into his instincts as he leans into Sirius. Sirius drinks hungrily, taking as much as he can without jeopardising the girl’s health. He seals the wound and deposits the girl on a fallen tree trunk, lighting their fire with passing thought as he stands again. Sirius is quick with the lighter even in his high, wary of its value, and so his sleight of hand makes the fire blooming look like magic. He does nothing to dissuade the human’s opinion of it.

Sirius turns back to see Remus stepping up to the other woman, with wild, earth-brown hair wrapped up in cloth. Sirius smiles and pride blooms hot beneath his sternum, unimpeded now with the high and the way euphoria has snaked around his limbs. Remus gives him a stuttering look that Sirius rewards with a smile and a keen nod. _Well done, dear heart. Trust yourself,_ he thinks, willing Remus forward.

The moment Remus sinks his teeth into the girl’s wrist he responds with a hiss that shoots straight to Sirius’ cock despite their surroundings. It’s _glorious_ to see him like this, to see him coming into his power. Although he dislikes the idea of Remus’ teeth on anyone else, seeing him exert control like this is intoxicating.

Seeing Remus’ throat work around swallows of blood undoes Sirius like his lighter to tinder, like the snapping of a lightning strike through the trunk of a tree. He clenches a hand in his pocket and closes the gap between them. The woman is far enough under, hazy with the bite, that she doesn’t care. Sirius filters his fingers through Remus’ curls and marvels as his eyes flicker up to meet Sirius’ gaze, his mouth still fastened to her wrist.

Sirius groans softly and swallows a moment before he can speak. “So good, sweetling, so good. Just right… Listen—” another swallow as Remus’ tongue chases a stray droplet of blood— “listen to her heartbeat now, that’s enough…”

Remus obediently pulls back and touches the bite with his finger. Sirius grins, inordinately pleased at the magic that fizzles from Remus’ touch now he has seen it from the others. His thumb strays to the corner of Remus’ mouth to catch a smear of rust-red, and Remus’ smile is glittering and dangerous as he nips at the pad of his thumb.

He’s swimming in it, Sirius can tell, swimming in the high, in the taste of iron and ambrosia, in the thrill that comes from exerting control over others. Sirius catches him around the waist and steadies him even as he directs the woman to sit on the fallen tree next to her friend.

“A moment, dear, just a moment to make sure they are okay then we can do what we wish,” Sirius murmurs into Remus’ mouth as he presses up to kiss him. He’s sprawling high, yes, untethered on the twinned endorphins of his own drinking and watching Remus unfold into himself, but Sirius is used to trying to keep a level head when it’s needed, especially so after his lapse in judgement that resulted in Remus’ current state. Remus still pushes against those boundaries with every breath.

“They are fine,” Remus responds, winding his arms around Sirius’ waist, already urging him back towards the privacy of the tree-line. His mouth tips to the side and leaves a hot trail over Sirius’ skin, no doubt tasting the fresh blood beneath. “It’s so good… so good, Sirius. But you taste better.”

Sirius spares one last glance to the women—they seem well enough, and there is no-one else nearby, he is sure—before he hauls Remus back into the jungle and presses him against a crumbling half-wall. “You, my dear one, are temptation itself.”

Remus smiles and tips his head back. His eyes are sharp and blurred and his lips are blood-stained. “Only for you.”

“Mm, indeed.” Sirius smiles and traces his finger over Remus’ jawline, down the swell of his throat to his bared collarbone. He finds he doesn’t miss the absence of a pulse when Remus has such a smile on his lips. And as Remus leans forward to nip at Sirius’ neck with his sharpened teeth, giving a groan of satisfaction that rumbles through them both, Sirius thinks Remus doesn’t miss it either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for coming on this vampire journey with me. I want to write so much more in this world--I love it so! If you have anything you'd like to see these two get up to, let me know and you might inspire a sequel of some kind! Thank you again, I adore you 🖤


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